The development and validation of the psychosocial maturity scale for young Indian adults

• Main Author: Kattikat, Xavier, O.S.A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2000
• Subjects: Social maturity scales; Maturation (Psychology); Adulthood; Indian youth; Counseling Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/914
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study draws up the concept of psychosocial maturity among young Indian adults aged 18 to 25 years and develops an instrument to measure it. The literature showed that traditionally three domains were considered important in a person--the Mental, Spiritual and Social Domains (Prabhavananda & Isherwood, 1972). Maturity involved the presence of certain characteristics in each of the domains. Among the existing psychological tests, there was none that measures the psychosocial maturity levels of young Indian adults. In order to develop the test to measure psychosocial maturity, a survey was conducted among adult Indians to find out the present concept of psychosocial maturity. From the related literature and the survey, the content of the scale was drawn up. From the content, the items were drawn up. Three psychologists and a language professor validated the content and the items, which eventually became the preliminary form of the scale. The language and content of the preliminary form were evaluated by ten young Indian adults. This was done to ensure that the target subjects would easily understand the test. The instrument was administered to 500 young Indian adults and their scores were factor-analyzed to find the relationship between the items and item analyzed and to find out the strength of the items. The factor analysis yielded only one significant factor. The item analysis showed the internal consistency of the scale. The scale was tested on 200 young Indian adults and a retest was done after one week to find out the test retest reliability of the scale. The analysis showed that the test has a reliability of .9259 in the Mental Domain, .9208 in the Spiritual Domain, .8553 in the Social Domain and .9038 for the total scale. In order to establish the construct validity of the scale, two studies were undertaken. The first study, which involved the different stages of formation of the Augustinian Seminary, Kochi, India, showed that the differences in their scores were highly significant. The second study involving contrasting groups showed that the differences in their scores were significant and the null hypothesis was rejected. Thus the studies established the validity of the scale. Finally, the norms of the scale were established by using a normative sample of 700 young Indian adults.