The Perceived Social Support for Job Search Activity Scale (PSS-JSAS): A psychometric evaluation in the context of Ghana

Abstract

Lack of social support can have a profound impact on the job search efforts of young adults. The Perceived Social Support for Job Search Activity Scale (PSS-JSAS) was developed to assess the quality of social support a job seeker receives during a job search. Building on this previous work, the present study assessed the PSS-JSAS’s factor structure, construct validity, reliability, and measurement invariance in the context of Ghana. Data for the present analysis were provided by 429 recent university graduates. The sample was randomly split into two subsamples for exploratory factor analysis (EFA; n = 223) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; n = 206). EFA and parallel analysis with the first subsample suggested a single factor structure, comprising 6 items out of the original 8 items. In CFA with the second subsample, the construct validity of the single factor structure was found to be optimal. Multi-group CFA with the second subsample showed that the single factor structure was invariant across gender. Further, reliability analysis on the total sample and the subsamples demonstrated good internal consistency reliability for the 6 items. The validity evidence obtained in this study suggests that the PSS-JSAS has good psychometric properties and is thus suitable for assessing social support for job search efforts of university graduates.