Technique for Diagnostic Assessment of Socially-Oriented Activity Components

Interdisciplinary studies of personal and group social activity are crucial for theoretical problem solution, i.e. determination of its place among psychological phenomena, analysis of its structure and elements, as well as practical problem solution, i.e. definition of its motivation, regulation mechanisms and development of risk management tools. Lack of a valid, modern, reliable tool defines the necessity of its socio-psychological substantiation and development. The study presents the results of development and validation of the questionnaire on socially-oriented activity. The authors performed theoretical analysis of the personal social activity phenomenon, which substantiates theoretical validity of the questionnaire. It has been shown that investigators single out various components of personal social activity; however, there has been no empirically developed structure and diagnostic assessment methods. 305 people took part in the study, 35.4% male. The authors used the questionnaire aimed at setting socio-demographic characteristics and scales aimed at measuring adherence to certain social activity type. We used Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 20.0) for primary data processing and SPSS AMOS 19 software for confirmatory factor analysis. The study features calculation results for asymmetry, kurtosis and the test by Kolmogorovand Smirnov, indicating normal distribution of the trait, as measured by the questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis helped to single out four factors that formed the questionnaire scales and characterize the components of personal socially-oriented activity (i.e. cognitive components, emotional-status components, motivational component and behavioral component). We have analyzed statistical interconnections between scales and within scales, which demonstrate internal consistency and reliability of the questionnaire. Correlation analysis resulted in detecting significant interconnections between social activity components and activity orientation, which testifies to convergent validity of the questionnaire. We have come to the conclusion that the questionnaire is reliable and valid and can be used for evaluation of personal socio-oriented activity and its components (cognitive, emotional-status, motivational and behavioral) within the framework of altruistic, civil, socio-economic, educational-developmental, leisure, religious and spiritual types of activity. The results of the study have been compared with theoretical data; limits to applicability of the questionnaire have been identified as well.

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