Psychometric and conceptual analysis of the resilience at university scale

This study tested the confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) model of the Resilience at University (RAU) scale and considered the conceptual properties of the scale relative to students transitioning from the adolescent-to-adulthood psychological developmental stage. Survey data were obtained from 808 Australian undergraduate business students. Using the holdout sample (sub-sample B), the factorial structure of the set of 19 items loading onto a 7-factor structure demonstrated very good model fit and all factor loadings were significant. Evidence confirming the internal consistency of the scales was more equivocal. While the CFA confirms the validity of the seven-factor structure, the Cronbach’s alpha indicates issues within four of the seven subscales. It was identified that changes to four of the dimensions would help ensure that the RAU demonstrates both the validity and the reliability required for an effective scale for its intended population. To address the reliability issues, several of the subscales will benefit from additional items to better explicate the concepts concerned and to improve reliability. A key challenge, however, of developing a resilience measure for use with university students is the transitional psychological developmental stage of the undergraduate cohort.