Development of Urdu Social Support Scale (USSS)

Abstract

The purpose behind this study is to develop an indigenous measure of Social Support, named as Social Support Scale. Primarily, logical-content approach was used to develop items for multiple dimensions of social support and as a result 87 items were constructed.  A field expert implemented the qualitative item analysis on these items, leading to the retention of 32 items. The refined version was then administered to a sample of 308 undergraduate students (age range 18–25 years, M = 75.61, SD = 14.43). Item-total correlation was implemented to determine quantitative item analysis, which caused the elimination of 12 items. The final Urdu Social Support Scale (USSS) consisted of 20 items, on which Factor Analysis was done to determine which items are valid. Thereafter, to establish the factor loadings Principal Component Analysis was carried out. The total variance of 57.84% was attained from the extraction of the three factors. The first, second and third factors had an eigenvalue of 8.01, 1.96 and 1.59 explaining 40.05%, 9.80% and 7.99% of the variances respectively. After the evaluation of the item content, the fundamental aspects of social support were determined and then the factors were labeled. The three factors were labeled as Parental Social Support, Social Support from Peers, and Societal Social Support. The subscales of Parental Social Support, Social Support from Peers, and Societal Social Support are comprised of seven (7) items, four (4) items and nine (9) items respectively. Then to assess the scale’s reliability, the alpha coefficient was computed, which increased from 0.78 to 0.91. The alpha coefficient values of Parental Social Support, Social Support from Peers, and Societal Social Support are .92, .86 and .82 respectively which shows a high reliability of each subscale. The conclusive version of the scale can be adopted and administered across various cultures specially in collectivistic ones and in different settings such as research and educational settings.

Keywords: Social Support, Collectivistic Cultures, Scale Development, Factor Analysis, Reliability, Validity, Undergraduate Students