This study aims to develop and validate a community competencies scale for university students. To develop the items, the concept of university students’ community competencies was first defined based on previous studies, followed by component extraction.
“University students’ community competencies” was defined as “the ability to adopt and practice the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required of university students to achieve a harmonious development with the community as subjective individuals in the community (department, university, society) they are affiliated with.”
A preliminary survey was administered to 111 students from Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Jeonbuk with a questionnaire consisting of 71 items whose content validity was examined by experts. The results of the preliminary survey were subjected to item analysis to obtain descriptive statistics including skewness and kurtosis. Based on the results of the item analysis, 46 items were finally selected as the final questionnaire items.
The questionnaires returned from male and female university students (n=609) from Seoul, Gyeonggi, Chungbuk, Chungnam, Jeonbuk, and Jeonnam were randomly divided into the exploratory group (n= 305) and cross-validation group (n=305). The exploratory group was subjected to descriptive statistics analysis, reliability analysis, and exploratory factor analysis. As a result, five(participation and responsibility, acceptance of diversity, self-awareness, interpersonal skills, and) were extracted. A total of 23 items were then formulated accordingly.
Construct validity for the extracted factors and items was determined by a confirmatory factor analysis and convergent and discriminant validity analyses. The goodness-of-fit indices of the 5-factor research model were satisfactory, thus supporting the construct validity of the scale.
Criterion-related validity was determined by examining the correlations between core competency of university students, career adaptability of university students, and teamwork competency scales. The correlation coefficients calculated were appropriate, thus supporting the criterion-related validity of the community competencies scale for university students.
A cross-validation analysis was performed to confirm the applicability of the structural model of community competencies scale for university students confirmed by the exploratory group to the cross-validation group. As a result, the fit of the factor structure was found to be good for the cross-validation group as well, thus securing the generalizability of the community competencies scale for university students.
Lastly, the reliability of the final scale was evaluated by analyzing the internal consistency of each subfactor and the reliability of the test-retest administered to the same people(n = 79; 43 male and 36 female students) with an interval of 3 weeks. The result revealed the overall internal consistency(Cronbach’s α) and test-retest reliability to be satisfactory(.919 and .907, respectively), thus verifying the validity and reliability of the community competencies scale for university students developed in this study.
Based on the foregoing, the significance and limitations of this study and suggestions for follow-up studies were presented.