The Development Of The Positive Personality Scale For The University Students

Objective:To develop and test the reliability and validity of Positive Personality Scale for the university students(PPSUS).Methods:On the basis Dengfeng Wang`s character adjective scale and widely read literatures about character scales,the structure of the PPSUS was generated through methods like questionnaire survey and case interview.After reading many character scales,Items had been brought forward by nominal group.Through small sample tested,focus group discussed and items modified,ideas and suggestions from experts on psychometrics had been adapted before the PPSUS formed.Using cluster random sampling method,total 1100 students who are university students were tested with PPSUS.With other instruments,the reliability and validity of the scale were also tested.Results:(1)Exploratory principal component analysis of the items identified that the scale had 11 first-order factors and 2 second-order factors,explaining 58.238%and 53.423%of the total variance respectively.(2)Reliability test,Cronbach`a coefficient,split-half and test-retest correlation coefficients ranged from 0.686 to 0.836,0.699 to 0.828,and 0.570 to 0.841 respectively for the first-order factors,from 0.896 to 0.907,0.848 to 0.868,and 0.797 to 0.862 respectively for the second-order factors,and were 0.931,0.900 and 0.835 respectively for the total scale.(3)Inter-scale correlations studies showed that the correlations among the first-order and second-order factor scores were all significant(P＜0.01),ranged from 0.159 to 0.912,except v1 between v3 and v1 between v9,the correlations between the first-order factor and second-order factor scores and total scores were all significant(P＜0.01), ranged from 0.499 to 0.712.(4)The first-order factors `s result of the validate factor analysis:χ~2/df,RMSEA,AGFI,GFI,IFI,CFI and NFI is respectively 1.91,0.045,0.816,0.839,0.858,0.856,0.742; and the second-order factors `s result of the validate factor analysis:χ~2 / df,RMSEA,IFI,CFI and NFI is respectively1.97,0.046, 0.845,0.843,0.728,which is supporting the theoretical structure of this scale.(5) The test of the criterion validity shows:the correlation coefficient between PPSUS and Well-Being Index were 0.349,and the correlation coefficient between Well-Being Index and v1,v2,v3,v5,v7,v11,F1,F2 were respectively 0.315,0.228,0.353,0.363,0.359,0.256,0.302,0.323.(6) Difference studies showed that the sex,grade, city-country and specialty had no significant affect on PPSUS,but the parents` work had significant affect on PPSUS.Conclusions(1)Psychometrics properties analyses showed that the PPSUS achieved good to excellent levels of internal consistency and test-retest reliability.(2) The construct validity is good and achieves the demand of psychometrics.(3)The criterion validity is good by the correlative research between PPSUS and Psychological well-being. (4)The empirical validity were not good by the difference studies.