Acessibilidade / Reportar erro

Construction and Validation of the Character Strengths Scale for Youth (CSS-Youth)

Construção e Validação da Escala de Forças de Caráter para Adolescentes (EFC-A)

Elaboración y Validez de la Escala de Fuerzas de Carácter para Adolescentes (EFC-A)

Abstract

Character strengths are positive individual characteristics that may be expressed through thoughts, feelings and actions. The present study aimed to build an instrument to assess the virtues and character strengths of adolescents and to seek psychometric evidence for the scale. A total of 836 adolescents participated, between the ages of 14 and 18 and enrolled in high school, being 60.4% girls. Students responded to the Character Strengths Scale for Youth (CSS-Youth). Judges’ analysis indicated that CSS-Youth has evidence of content validity. Confirmatory factorial analysis allowed the extraction of five factors, and the alpha coefficient showed good accuracy. The initial psychometric data for CSS-Youth is promising, but further studies are necessary to find other validity evidence, as well as new analyses to test the factorial structure of the model used.

Keywords:
psychological assessment; positive psychology; test construction

Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia Av.Bandeirantes 3900 - Monte Alegre, 14040-901 Ribeirão Preto - São Paulo - Brasil, Tel.: (55 16) 3315-3829 - Ribeirão Preto - SP - Brazil
E-mail: paideia@usp.br