Psychometric properties of the Secondary School Stressor Questionnaire among adolescents at five secondary schools

AbstractObjectiveThis study aimed to evaluate the construct, convergent, and discriminant validity of the Secondary School Stressor Questionnaire (3SQ) as well as its internal consistency among adolescents in Malaysian secondary schools.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted on 700 secondary school students in five secondary schools. Stratified random sampling was used to select schools and participants. The confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine its construct, convergent, and discriminant validity. The reliability analysis was performed to determine its internal consistency.ResultThe results showed that the original six-factor model with 44 items failed to achieve acceptable values of the goodness of fit indices, indicating poor model fit. A new five-factor model of 3SQ with 22 items demonstrated acceptable level of goodness of fit indices to signify a model fit. The overall Cronbach's alpha value for the new version 3SQ was 0.93, while the five constructs ranged from 0.68 to 0.94. The composite reliability values of each construct ranged between 0.68 and 0.93, indicating satisfactory to high level of convergent validity.ConclusionThe construct validity of the original version of 3SQ was not supported. We found the new version 3SQ showed more convincing evidence of validity and reliability to measure stressors of adolescents. Continued research is required to verify and maximize the psychometric credentials of 3SQ across institutions and nationalities