CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF THE MULTICULTURAL PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRES FOR NURSING STUDENTS

Abstract

The purpose  of this study was to examine  the validity, particularly the construct  validity and reliability of Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; van der Zee, van Oudenhoven, Ponterotto, Fietzer, 2013) and further  determined the significant difference when tested across the personal characteristics of nursing students. The original MPQ scale consists of five factors: cultural empathy, flexibility, social initiative, open- mindedness, flexibility and emotional stability. The MPQ was administered to a total of 122 nursing students (national (59.8%), Filipino-American (7.21%), and international (32.99%) nursing students. The study showed that four factors were generated  using confirmatory factor analysis. The 78-item MPQ was reduced to 21 items. The four factors included cultural empathy, social initiative, open-mindedness, and emotional stability. Flexibility was one of the factors in the original version of the five-factor scale of MPQ but not evident it in this study. The analysis of the data resulted in a reasonably good fit and a satisfactory Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient for each factor. The overall Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient (α) of the scale is .713;  .861,

.806, .717, and .663 for cultural empathy, social initiative, open-mindedness,  and emotional stability with a percent of variance accounted for of 25.12%,  11.91%, 11.79%, and 8.26%, respectively. Significant differences were found in some factors of MPQ considering the personal characteristics of nursing students. The results indicated that the MPQ could serve as a valuable tool to measure the multicultural personality of nursing students from the Philippines.