RESEARCH ARTICLE
A Cross-validation of the Revised Moral Virtue Scale for Thai Nursing Students: Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Multiple-Group Approach
Pisamai Orathai1, *, Kesinee Chaimo2, Benchaporn Chuengkriangkrai1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2023Volume: 17
E-location ID: e187443462301312
Publisher ID: e187443462301312
DOI: 10.2174/18744346-v17-230221-2022-135
Article History:
Received Date: 27/08/2022Revision Received Date: 15/01/2023
Acceptance Date: 18/01/2023
Electronic publication date: 29/03/2023
Collection year: 2023
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Ethics must be deemed essential in the nursing profession when becoming a nursing student to raise awareness of the importance and the need for professional development. In evaluating nursing students’ moral behavior, it is essential to have a well-developed instrument that reflects the actual moral behavior of nursing students.
Objectives:
This study aimed to overcome the limitations of the preliminary Moral Virtue Scale for Thai Nursing Students by developing and evaluating the construct validity and reliability of the revised scale.
Methods:
An extensive literature review and the preliminary scale were used to synthesize and develop the moral virtue definition, domains, items, and hypothesized model. The revised scale was tested on 1,000 nursing students from two nursing education institutes. The sample was split into a calibration sample (n = 489) and a validation sample (n = 511) to examine the construct validity and reliability using confirmatory factor analysis and multiple-group analysis.
Results:
Confirmatory factor analysis and a multiple-group approach provided evidence of construct validity and construct reliability. Both calibration and validation groups supported a consistent factor structure. The calibration group satisfied Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of ten domains from 0.75 to 0.87. A full scale was 0.97. In the validation group, Cronbach’s coefficient values ranged from 0.78 to 0.92, and the full scale was 0.98.
Conclusion:
Providing a valid and reliable instrument in this study may benefit nurse educators. The revised scale can potentially measure and monitor Thai nursing students' moral behavior.
