The study of factor structure, reliability and validity of basic empathy scale: Persian form

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factor structure and reliability, validity of basic empathy scale among high school students of Shiraz.Participants were 700 high school students (340 male and 360 female) from Shiraz city that selected by cluster sampling method and they completed basic empathy scale and peer relation and aggressive subscales. Cronbach’s alpha, test-retest reliability, exploratory factor analysis and convergent and divergent validity for data analyzing were used. The results of exploratory factor analysis showed two factors that named affective component and cognitive component. The two factors explained 37/7 percent of total variance and Cranach’s alpha coefficients for scale were ranged from 0.74 to 0.84 and test-retest reliability coefficients were from 0.72 to 0.80. Also, in present study girls showed more empathy than boys.Based on this result, BES is a valuable instrument for assessing of empathy in adolescences and it can be used by mental health and educational professionals