Dimensions of Grace: Factor Analysis of Three Grace Scales

Measuring grace is challenging. Prior research found the Grace Scale (GS), Richmont Grace Scale (RGS), and The Amazing Grace Scale (TAGS) to be reliable, have promising convergent and divergent validity, and to inter-correlate strongly. However, they may tap different constructs, or grace may be multidimensional (Bufford, Blackburn, Sisemore, & Bassett, 2015). Here two exploratory factor analyses of the combined items showed five factors: experiencing God’s grace, costly grace, grace to self, grace from others, and grace to others, partially paralleling Watson, Chen and Sisemore (2011). Items from all three scales loaded on Factor 1, only items from the RGS loaded on Factor 2. The remaining factors were mostly GS items and a few RGS items. The three scales measure somewhat different constructs. Preliminary validity for the five factors is promising. Regressions showed that combinations of the other four proposed scales accounted for at most about one third of the variance on any given grace factor. The five factors showed different patterns of relationships to criterion variables. We propose a 36 item Dimensions of Grace Scale combining items from all three scales for further exploration