Social capital in rural areas: adaptation to Spanish and factor validation of a scale

Social capital is considered a structural determinant of social development and wellbeing. Its cognitive component assesses the degree of confidence of the population in their systems for social organization, as well as community interactions to coordinate social responses to social problems. There are few available scales for measuring this construct. This work presents the adaptation to Spanish and psychometric validation of a scale for measuring social capital in a rural setting. The Wang Social Cognitive Scale was also adapted to Spanish. 1200 questionnaires were applied to adults in 12 villages of the municipality of Tierra Alta, (Colombia) recruited by random sampling. Factor analysis of the scale was performed based on a polychoric correlation matrix. Exploratory factor analysis suggests the existence of two principal factors distributed as follows: 7 items for factor 1, trust (eigenvalue 3.23) and 2 items, for factor 2, distrust (eigenvalue 1.40). As observed by Wang, Q9 and Q10 could be ambiguous questions which do not contribute enough to either of the factors. The first factor validation to Spanish language of the Wang Social Capital Scale is presented in the social context of rural Colombia.