Psychological Flexibility for University Students: Scale Development Employing Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses

Abstract

The objective of the study was to develop and validate an instrument to measure psychological flexibility in university students. There has been a lack of relevant existing tools that provides the expressions from the local context of Pakistani culture among the study population. The data was collected from a private university in Lahore Pakistan. A pool of 43 items was generated with the help of 73 undergraduate students. The items were administered to (N=538) students, males (28%), and females (72%) with the mean age of 21.5years, (SD=3.64). The responses were equally divided to perform exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The results arrived at a five-factor solution of 42 items and a three-factor solution of 29 items. Among the two competing solutions, the three-factor model of 29 items was chosen as the final scale based on confirmatory factor analysis results which measures (a) compassion and moral values, (b) social adjustment, and (c) self-management in university students belong to the fields of natural, social or management sciences. The scale is named the "Psychological Flexibility Scale for University students (PFS-US)". This suggests that the tool would provide future directions for advancement in this area of assessment and prevention of mental health in university students.