Assessment of the Factor Structure and Reliability of the Mental Toughness Scale among High School Students

Mental toughness is a measure of individual resilience and confidence that may predict success in various areas of life such as education. However, the literature review indicates that no scale has been standardized in this regard among the population of students in Iran. The purpose of the current study was to examine the validity, reliability, and factor structure of Mcgeown Clair & Putwain mental toughness scale. The research method is correlation. The population is taken from students of the public high school of Tehran in the 5th District. The total number of the participants was 370 students in the academic year of 2017-2018 which were selected by the random cluster sampling method. Exploratory factor analysis extracted five components which were confirmed by first-order confirmatory factor analysis after modification. Second-order confirmatory factor analysis showed that these five components could be categorized in one concept which is mental toughness. In sum, it can be said that the mental toughness scale has a good validity and reliability among the population of Iranian students and can be used for educational, diagnostic, research, and therapeutic purposes