Construction and Validity Evidence of a Socioemotional Skills Scale for University Students

The aim of this study was to construct and investigate validity evidence for a measure of socioemotional skills for university students. Of the 60 items initially designed to represent six factors of the construct, 42 of them showed theoretical consistency. To analyze the structure of the instrument, exploratory factor analysis was carried out, based on the application of the instrument with 365 students. The analysis revealed six factors that presented groupings of items theoretically consistent with the definitions of the proposed hypothetical model: Self-Management of Emotions, Social Awareness, Responsible Decision-Making, Perseverance, Emotional Self-Awareness and Relationship Skills. The final structure, with 35 items, was able to explain 45.16% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed, based on the application of the instrument with 712 undergraduate students. The proposed structural model was confirmed, with adequate fit indices. Precision indices varied between .69 and .78. It is suggested that further studies investigate other types of validity evidence.