Revision and Validation of the Parental Autonomy Support Scale Among Chinese College Students

Abstract

To revise the Parental Autonomy Support Scale (PASS) and to validate its psychometric properties in Chinese college students, this study recruited 738 Chinese college students, with 72 of them retested four weeks later. The Parental Psychological Control Scale (PPCS) and the Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) were used to evaluate the validity of the PASS. Results showed that the revised PASS contained a total of nine items measuring three dimensions: autonomous decision-making, transpositional thinking, and willingness to respect. Results showed that the three-factor ESEM model fitted the data well (TLI = 0.981, CFI = 0.994, RMSEA = 0.046). The PASS showed a significant negative correlation between the total score of the PASS and the total score of the PPCS ( r = −0.344, p < .001), and a significant positive correlation of the PASS with the total score of the RSES ( r = 0.297, p < .001). The composite reliability coefficient was 0.913 for the total score. The test-retest reliability coefficients were 0.827 for the total score and ranged from 0.626 to 0.744 for the three dimensions. The revised PASS is shown to have sound psychometric properties and thus can be used as a tool to measure the level of parental autonomy support among Chinese college students.