Psychometric properties of the psychological capital scale and testing alternative models for Khalid king university students

Abstract

     Psychological capital is a construct based on positive psychology principles. This concept is composed by four dimensions, self-efficacy hope, resilience, and optimism, which have a synergistic action. The aim of this study was to evaluate the construct validity, reliability, compare among factorial models as showed in literature of Psychological Capital scale. Convergent and discriminant validity were also evaluated. Electronic survey was administered to a sample of 320 college students enrolled in Khalid king university in KSA. Data were analyzed through the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability was assessed with the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient. Furthermore, Exploratory factor analysis showed three factor solution, and four factors model showed poor fit to data (RMSEA=0.093, CFI=0.88, TLI=0.86), and four factor model additional fifth factor which contains three negative items showed good fit with data (RMSEA=0.08, CFI=0.91, TLI=0.90). The scale showed satisfactory degree of convergent and discriminant validity. Cronbach’s alpha was from .77 to 0.92. The implications of these results are discussed, and recommendations are provided for future researches.