Psychometric Properties of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire for Male and Female Gifted Adolescents

Abstract

Aim: The main purpose of the present study was to investigate psychometric properties of the Farsi version of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ, Luthans, Avolio, Avey & Norman, 2007) among male and female gifted adolescents. In this correlational study, 366 adolescents (182 male and 184 female) completed the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ), Health-oriented Academic Life-Style promoting/reducing Behaviors Questionnaire (HALSBQ, Salehzadeh, Shokri & Fathabadi, 1396), School Engagement Inventory (SEI, Salmela-Aro & Upadaya, 2012) and School Burnout Inventory (SBI, Salmela-Aro, Kiuru, Leskinen & Nurmi, 2009). The confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group methods were used to compute the PCQ's factorial validity and its gender invariance, respectively. The results of confirmatory factor analysis based AMOS software showed that the four factor model of PCQ (self-efficacy, resiliency, optimism and hope) fit well to the data across two groups. The results of multi-group confirmatory factor analysis revealed the cross-group invariance of factorial structure, factor loadings, and factor variances and covariance’s of the PCQ across male and female adolescents. Correlational analyses between psychological capacity with academic well-being and academic life style behaviors provided initial evidence for the PCQ criterion validity. Internal consistency coefficients for the self-efficacy, hope, resiliency and optimism subscales were 0/88, 0/86, 0/86 & 0/80 respectively. In sum, these findings provide evidence for the validity and reliability of the PCQ to measure of psychological capital in male and female gifted adolescents.