Investigating the Psychometric Properties of the Psychological Virtue of Courage Scale Among University Students

Positive psychology, as a new domain of psychology, is focused on understanding and describing happiness and mental wellbeing and predicting their associated factors. 

The present study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the virtue of courage scale and its relationship with social health and life quality among university students.

The research method was based on tool construction and development. The statistical population consisted of 10221 students of the Islamic Azad University of Sari Branch in the 2017-2018 academic year. Of whom, a sample of 384 subjects was selected. The required data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire of psychological courage regarding Islamic scholars 'views, the 26-item World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-26) questionnaire, and the Keyes Social Health Questionnaire. Nonparametric Spearman's rank-order correlation and multiple linear regression methods were used to determine the relationships between the items. The scale's content validity was assessed by the Content Validity Index (CVI) and Content Validity Ratio (CVR) indices based on Leo's Table. SPSS was used for data analysis.

The obtained results suggested that the value of the first factor equaled 5.47; therefore, it was a significant factor in factor analysis. In total, 7 factors explained 60.10% of the variance. The correlation coefficients between the subscales and the total score of courage, quality of life, and social health scales indicated a proper concurrent validity of the courage scale. To investigate the validity of the 31-item scale, internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficient) was calculated, ranging from 0.83 to 0.93. 

The psychometric properties of the psychological virtue of courage scale have been supported; thus, it could be used in future research studies. Additionally, there was a significant relationship between courage, quality of life, and social health in this inventory.