Self and Its Actualization: Panoramic Validity

Abstract

Objective: The validity of Quranic Orientation Scale (QOS) developed by Khodadady and Dastgahian [1] was explored. They extracted its underlying factors through Principal Axis Factoring (PAF) and rotated them via Promax with Kaiser Normalization (PKN). This study, however, rotated the extracted factors via Varimax with Kaiser Normalization (VKN) to find out 1) which rotational method determines the invariance in the factors extracted from the QOS and 2) which factors rotated with these methods associate positively with English language achievement (ELA). Method: The responses of 1123 grade 4 senior high school students (G4SHSSs) who took the QOS were subjected to PAF and VKN. The extracted and rotated factors were then correlated with the students’ scores on a test measuring their ELA. To standardize the method the word “self” was operationalized by resorting to divine religion and schema theory. Results: VKN is superior to PKN for several reasons. First, it shows QOS enjoys not only factorial but also divine, empirical and theoretical validity. Secondly, the invariance in the QOS items lies in its first factor. Thirdly; the first factor rotated by VKN is broader than that of the PKN in its constituting items. And finally, the first factor rotated by VKN explains G4SHSSs’ self-actualization better than the QOS because its positive association with the ELA is stronger than those of the QOS and PKN. Conclusion: Self is an 11-taxon schema through which G4SHSSs resort not only to God but also to other sapiens to actualize it.