Construction of an anxiety scale and its validation

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to construct a new anxiety scale and to test its validity. For this aim, two inquiries were carried out. First, a preliminary questionnaire was given to 370 undergraduates and the data was analyzed by the oblique promax rotation method of factor analysis. Based on this result, ten subscales, each consisting of ten items, were established. Then, the validity of the new anxiety scale was examined by administering it to 456 normal adults and 132 psychopathic outpatients. Using the new anxiety scale, we could distinguish 76.2-79.4% psychopathics from normal group. And discriminations of psychopathy types were 72.7-94.1% success. The reliability of new scale was also examined; its theta reliability coefficients ranged from .713 to .876 and its test-retest reliability coefficients with three-week time interval ranged from .756 to .904.