Développement d’une échelle de mesure des conditions de l’estime de soi auprès d’adolescents francophones – ÉMCESA

Abstract

This article presents the findings of three studies aiming to develop and validate a French-language scale of adolescents’ self-esteem conditions, the Adolescents’ Self-Esteem Conditions Scale (ASECS). Designed for young people from the beginning to the end of adolescence, the 30-item scale measures to which extent youths base their self-esteem on positive and negative events related to their social acceptance, physical appearance, sportive and athletic performance, body weight and academic achievement. In the first study, the ASECS was administered to a sample of 431 francophone students from grade 7th to grade 11th. Seven weeks later, 372 of these students were invited to answer the questionnaire once more. Exploratory factor analysis yielded five factors with high internal consistency and strong test-retest reliability. In the second study, the five-factor model was confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis on data from 1523 francophone 7th–11th graders. Finally, finding from the third study ( n = 344) demonstrated the instrument's convergent validity. The results from the three studies establish the ASECS’ strong psychometric properties. The discussion focuses on its usefulness in research and intervention among adolescents.