| TESTING THE FINNISH VERSION (1998) |
| With Paivi Aastedt-Kurki and Eija Paavilainen, University of Tampere, Finland |
| The 25-item version of the ASF-E used for testing with sample 6 (see Development of the ASF-E) was translated into Finnish by faculty of the University of Tampere. The translated version was back-translated into English by other faculty and sent to the author for approval. A few minor changes were incorporated according to the author’s suggestions. The tool was then administered to 196 patients in two hospital departments. |
| Demographics of the Sample |
| N = 196 |
|
Gender: |
| Males | 43 | 21.93% |
| Females | 151 | 77.00% |
| Missing | 2 | 0.07% |
| 196 | 100% |
|
Marital Status: |
| Single | 27 | 13.77% |
| Married | 113 | 57.66% |
| Living Together | 29 | 14.80% |
| Widowed | 8 | 4.08% |
| Divorced | 19 | 9.69% |
| 196 | 100% |
|
Education: |
| 9 years of school | 81 | 41.32% |
| 12 years of school | 9 | 4.59% |
| Apprenticeship | 38 | 19.39% |
| Jr. College | 42 | 21.43% |
| University | 9 | 4.59% |
| Other | 15 | 7.65% |
| Missing | 2 | 1.02% |
| 196 | 100% |
|
Number children in the household: |
| Range 1-6 children in household. | ||
| Without children | 119 | 60.72% |
| 1 child | 38 | 19.39% |
| 2 children | 24 | 12.24% |
| 3 children | 12 | 6.12% |
| 4 to 6 children | 3 | 1.53% |
| 196 | 100.00% |
|
Number adults in the household: |
| Range 1 to 8 adults in household | ||
| 1 adult | 20 | 10.20% |
| 2 adults | 88 | 44.91% |
| 3 adults | 29 | 14.79% |
| 4 adults | 14 | 7.14% |
| 5 adults | 7 | 3.57% |
| 6 adults | 8 | 4.08% |
| 8 adults | 4 | 2.04% |
| Missing | 26 | 13.27% |
| 196 | 100.00% |
| Test of Items |
| P-values of no larger than 80 are recommended (higher values suggest social desirability) |
| Since this was a very homogeneous sample, only items with p larger than 90 were excluded. This concerned 3 items. |
| Item to item correlation within the same dimension was at least .30 or statistically significant. All items were correlated significantly with 2 exceptions: Since both of these items contributed positively to the Cronbach alpha for the dimensions, they were left in. |
| Factor Analyses |
| Initial factor analysis was done in Finland. Resulted in 6 factors |
| Exploratory principal component analyses with Varimax orthogonal rotation were conducted with the remaining 22 items. Four-, five- and six-factor solutions were compared. A four-factor solution presented the most favorable grouping of items. |
| Two more items were excluded: |
| One item loaded on factor 2 with less than .40 |
| The exclusion of another item increased reliability of factor 4 from .27 to .42. |
| Final Factor Analysis |
| 20 items forced into four factors. Explained 50.4% of the variance |
| Result of the final factor analysis is represented below. The content of each item is summarized on the left, followed by the dimension to which the item was originally assigned: |
|
Item description |
Factor 1 | Factor 2 | Factor 3 | Factor 4 |
| SM/C | SC | SM | I | |
| Agreement about division of labor (SM) | 0.72 | |||
| Resolving problems together (SM) | 0.70 | |||
| Satisfaction with decisions (SM) | 0.69 | |||
| Feeling about being with the family (C) | 0.64 | |||
| Learning from problems (C) | 0.59 | |||
| Putting the family first (C) | 0.55 | |||
| Understanding each other (C) | 0.54 | |||
| Feelings in the family (C) | 0.47 | |||
| Being flexible to change (C) | 0.46 | |||
| Dealing with community organizations (SC) | 0.62 | |||
| Solving problems with organizations (SC) | 0.58 | |||
| Associating with other people (SC) | 0.58 | |||
| Expressing one’s opinion (I) | 0.55 | |||
| Respecting differences (I) | 0.52 | |||
| Allowing different interests (I) | 0.75 | |||
| Being helpful/ not doing enough (SM) | 0.59 | |||
| Working out disagreements (SM) | 0.54 | |||
| Help out in the community (I) | 0.75 | |||
| Participate in activities (I) | 0.67 | |||
| Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) | 0.83 | 0.68 | 0.56 | 0.55 |
| Factor 1 expressed working together (System Maintenance) and accepting each other (Coherence). |
| Factor 2 (System Change) |
| Factor 3 expressed resolving conflicts (System Maintenance) |
| Factor 4 (Individuation) |
| Crossloading was greater than .40 on item 1. All others were acceptable. |
| All factor loadings were above .40. |
| Internal Consistency - Reliability |
| Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for each factor were listed under "final factor analysis". |
| Single Dimensions |
| System Maintenance .72 ( F1 3 items, F3) |
| Coherence .73 ( F1 6 items) |
| System Change .68 (F2) |
| Individuation .55 (F4) |
| Subscales ( Targets): |
| Stability (System Maintenance and Coherence) .83 (13 items) |
| Growth (System Change and Individuation) .65 (7 items) |
| Control (System Change and System Maintenance) .76 (11 items) |
| Spirituality (Coherence and Individuation) .71 (9 items) |
| Total Scale .85 |
| Conclusions |
| A pretested tool is available with subscales for Stability, Growth, Control and Spirituality (Connectedness) that have acceptable reliability. |
| Weaknesses: |
| Individuation has few items. Individuation may benefit from more items expressing individual development in a future version. |
| Theoretical distinction of system maintenance and coherence is not shown statistically. The results of actions and the feelings they are left fell together doing things together. Probably, the latter also causes feelings of togetherness. Theoretically, the two dimensions are related even though not directly correlated. A subdimension of system maintenance expressed working out differences and conflicts, clearly on the interpersonal level grouped in Factor 3. Since reliabilities are good for the two dimensions (with factor 1 split in two parts), and are interpretable theoretically, there does not seem to be a methodological problem. |
| THE INSTRUMENT IS AVAILABLE FROM THE AUTHORS |
