Validity and Reliability Study of The Self-Compassion Scale for Secondary School Students Aged 12- 14 Years

Abstract

When the validity and reliability studies of the Self-Compassion Scale were examined in the relevant literature, we did not find a study of the Self-Compassion Scale, which was originally developed for university students and applied by some researchers to adolescents at high school
level, with middle school students (12-14 age group). In this context, validity and reliability analyzes were carried out in order to test the suitability of the self-compassion scale for middle school students. The sample consists of a total of 624 secondary school students, 339 girls and 285 boys, aged 12-14. As a data collection tool, the Self-Compassion Scale, which was developed by Neff (2003a) and adapted to Turkish by Akın, Akın and Abacı (2007), was used. It was concluded that the Self-Compassion Scale is a valid and reliable measurement tool for middle school
students. It is seen that the obtained fit index values are within acceptable limits and therefore the model has a good fit. At the end of the research, test-retest reliability was calculated as .76 and internal consistency coefficient was calculated as .89. The Self-Compassion Scale was found to be valid and reliable for middle school students.