Developed Scale on Psychological Functioning among Catholic Candidates to Consecrated Life in Bangalore City

Abstract

The main objective of the present research was to develop a scale on the Psychological Functioning of catholic candidates for Consecrated life in Bangalore City. The second objective of the study was to find out the level of Psychological functioning among catholic candidates for consecrated life. The researcher constructed psychological functioning as the main factor and came up with three domains, such as emotional functioning, behavioural skills, and social skills. Behavioural skills are respect, honesty and punctuality.  Emotional functioning is gladness, empathy and affection. Social skills are relationship, communication and moral values. The study was conducted in 3 phases such as expert validation, pilot study, and main investigation. In expert validation, the researcher met two experts in psychological functioning research filled and cross-checked the scale, and finally got approval from the persons for the further procedure of scale development. In phase 2, the researcher conducted a pilot study among 100 samples aged between 18 to 30 years through a random sampling method from Bangalore City, Karnataka. The collected data was analysed using appropriate statistical analyses such as reliability analysis, descriptive statistics and factor analysis. Also, the researcher has checked the reliability, item discrimination and item difficulty score for the scale. Results indicated that the scale has a high reliability score and few items are deleted in item discrimination and item difficulty after the item total statistics. In phase 3 the researcher administered the psychological functioning scale with 25 items among 300 samples aged between 19 to 30 years from different Religious Communities in Bangalore City. A random sampling method was used for the present study. The data was carried out for factor analysis and to test the reliability coefficient of the scale. Results indicated that after the factor analysis, the scale has good reliability and throughout the rotation matrix component analysis, 3 dimensions of the psychological functioning scale are formed namely social skills, behavioural skills, and emotional functioning. The scale has indicated a good fit which was within the expected psychometric properties. Overall results were found that the reliability of the developed scale was within the high range of statistical measures and the factor structure was adequate as per Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) measures. Also, the project found that the level of psychological functioning scale among Catholic Candidates to Consecrated Life. Results indicated that out of 300 samples seventy-four participants have a low level of psychological functioning, one hundred and forty-six participants have a moderate level of psychological functioning and eighty participants have a high level of psychological functioning. Overall results of the level of psychological functioning among Catholic Candidates to Consecrated Life showed that the majority of the participants have experienced a moderate level of psychological functioning.