European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

The primary aim of this study is the contextualized validation of the “Social Support Scale” of Caplan, et.al.(1980) that it can administered to the secondary school teachers in India. Questionnaire’s psychometric properties were analysed with a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using the version 23.0 of SPSS Statistics software. The sample of the consists of 309 secondary school teachers from various government and private secondary schools in the districts of Jalandhar and Kapurthala in the state of Punjab, India. Out of these 173 were retained after the EFA and CFA and the other 136 were dropped due to split loading and non-clarity in values. The instrument used was a seven point Likert scale with twelve items measuring three dimensions: i.e. the support that the teachers receive from their supervisors, co-workers, and family. The total variance explained is 84.677 which is much higher than the required 40. Thus it is very good. Weak reliability values forced the researcher to remove one each item from each of the three dimensions. CFA with the assistance from the version 23.0 of the SPSS AMOS software validated the factor structure of SSS. Scale’s inner consistency analysis confirmed the reliability. The alpha value of the first dimension is .905, .875 for the second dimension and the third dimension has .903. It is found to be very good. The new contextually validated three-dimensional SSS with nine items has the necessary psychometrics that it can, suitably, be administered to the secondary school teachers in India.