Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Ka-Si Empathic Tendency Scale Adolescent Form in Religious High School Students

Abstract

The KA-SI empathic tendency scale adolescent form (Kaya & Siyez, 2010) was developed to evaluate the emotional and cognitive empathic tendency levels of adolescents in the context of Turkish culture. Although frequently used to measure empathic tendency in Turkey, the factor structure of this scale and competing models are rarely examined in specific populations, such as religious high school students. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the structural validity of this scale in Imam and Preacher Training high school students using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Participants included 268 (156 males, 112 females) students who completed this instrument as part of a study related to the correlates of empathic tendency. Students’ responses to the KA-SI empathic tendency scale adolescent form were subjected to CFA using Mplus. Three competing models were tested in this study: the one factor model, two orthogonal factor model, and theoretically suggested two correlated factor model. Taking into account the ordinal nature of scale, mean, and variance, the adjusted weighted least squares (WLSMV) method was used to estimate model. CFA results showed that the two correlated factor model showed excellent fit to data (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .047, Comparative Fit Index (CFI):.976, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .972, Weighted Root Mean Square Residual (WRMR): .840). Thus, the KA-SI empathic tendency scale adolescent form may be used to investigate the empathic tendency of religious high school students. Future studies should examine the convergent, divergent, and predictive validity of this scale in different samples. © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology.