Validation of persian version of Santa Clara Ethics Scale (SCES): a study among Iranian University students.

BACKGROUND

The Santa Clara Ethics Scale (SCES) is tool for evaluating individual's ethical decision-making skills. This study aimed to investigate the validation process of the Persian version of the Santa Clara Ethics Scale (SCES) among Iranian university students.

METHODS

This research employed translation and validation design with cross-sectional approach, focusing on Iranian university students nationwide between May 5, 2020, and January 23, 2021. Data collection involved 537 participants (402 women and 135 men) selected through convenience sampling. After excluding 31 outliers, final sample comprised 506 respondents. These participants completed various questionnaires, including the Santa Clara Ethics Scale (SCES), Ethical and Legal Issues in Counseling Self-Efficacy Scale (ELICSES), Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSES), Adult Hope Scale (AHS), Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MC-SDS), and Self-Compassion Scale (SCS). The study assessed through Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient and Convergent and Divergent Validity using SPSS-21 and AMOS-24.

RESULTS

The face and content validity of the SCES were confirmed, and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) validated its one-factor structure and showed good model fit indices. The SCES demonstrated strong negative correlation with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI-16) (r = -0.561, p < 0.01). Positive correlations were observed between the SCES and the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (SES) (r = 0.411, p < 0.01), Snyder Hope Scale (Hope) (r = 0.332, p < 0.01), Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MC-SDS) (r = 0.29, p < 0.01), Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) (r = 0.599, p < 0.01), and Ethical and Legal Issues in Counseling Self-Efficacy Scale (ELICSES) (r = 0.352, p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

This research supported the satisfactory validity and reliability of the Santa Clara Ethics Scale (SCES) in assessing ethical inclinations in Iranian university student population.