Development and Validation of a Scale for Christian Character Assessment of University Students

Abstract

After the Character Education Act was enacted, providing character classes became a prerequisite in some Korean colleges starting in spring 2017. Keeping in step with these changes, experts researching character education cited the need for the development of character scales. The purpose of the present study is to explore the validity and reliability of the Christian character scale for university students. The participants were 994 students attending a Christian university in Seoul. The original 75 questions were developed from 13 factors, within three domains, from the three Biblical references and Christian universities’ virtuous character traits. These questions were reduced to 39, three per each factor, through the examination of content validity by a validation panel. Twenty-nine questions were finalized through exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis within five factors: relationships with others I—loving and caring, relationship with God, relationships with others II—loving and peacemaking, personal responsibility, and social responsibility.