Validation of Adolescent Civic Engagement Scale in the Ethiopian Context

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to validate an adolescent civic engagement measure in the Ethiopian context. The civic engagement measure had two sub-scales with a total number of 15 items: Adolescents’ Involvement in Community Services and Informal Helping. Participants were 960 adolescents aged 15 to 19 years (Mean=17.7, 53.5% female). Experts evaluation of items in the scale confirmed the content validity in assessing the construct. Experts evaluation of items in the scale confirmed the content validity.  Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted to examine the factor structures and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to confirm the proposed factors. The exploratory factor analysis resulted in three interpretable factors: adolescents’ involvement in community services, informal helping at school and informal helping at neighborhood, with acceptable factor loading of items to each factor. The Civic Engagement Scale and sub-scales have high reliability suggesting the ecological validity of the measure in the Ethiopian cultural context. Although the results of the EFA shows three factor structures, informal helping at school and neighborhood, and Community Services have high correlation indicating the factors measure the same construct. Norming of the scale for adolescents with adolescents with high medium and low civic engagements is established. Implications for future research are drawn.