The Case for the Perceived Social Competence Scale II

Objective:This study examines the psychometric properties of the revised Perceived Social Competence Scale (PSCS), a brief, user-friendly tool used to assess social competence among youth.Method:Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) examined the factor structure and invariance of an enhanced scale (PSCS-II), among a sample of 420 youth. Correlations between PSCS-II and self-reported social skill scores were examined. A longitudinal CFA tested the invariance of the factor structure over time with a different sample of 451 youth.Results:The revised 5-item PSCS-II demonstrated acceptable factorial validity, factorial invariance across time and gender as well as strong predictive validity.Conclusion:The PSCS-II was supported as a strengthened version of the PSCS to measure social competence in social work research and practice.