A Cross-validation of the Revised Moral Virtue Scale for Thai Nursing Students: Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Multiple-Group Approach

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.