Reliability and Construct Validity of the Portuguese Version of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire

The Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ) is the most commonly used measure for assessing psychological capital in work settings. Although several studies confirmed its factorial validity, most validation studies only examined the four-factor structure preconized by Luthans, Youssef, and Avolio,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological reports 2017-06, Vol.120 (3), p.520-536
Main Authors: Antunes, Ana Cristina, Caetano, António, Pina e Cunha, Miguel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Models, Psychological
Personality - physiology
Portugal
Psychometrics
Reproducibility of Results
Social Capital
Surveys and Questionnaires
Workplace - psychology
Young Adult
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Summary:The Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ) is the most commonly used measure for assessing psychological capital in work settings. Although several studies confirmed its factorial validity, most validation studies only examined the four-factor structure preconized by Luthans, Youssef, and Avolio, not attending to empirical evidence on alternative factorial structures. The present study aimed to test the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the PCQ, by using two independent samples (NS1 = 542; NS2 = 115) of Portuguese employees. We conducted a series of confirmatory factor analyses and found that, unlike previous findings, a five-factor solution of the PCQ best fitted the data. The evidence obtained also supported the existence of a second-order factor, psychological capital. The coefficients of internal consistency, as measured by Cronbach’s alpha, were adequate and test–retest reliability suggested that the PCQ presented a lower stability than personality factors. Convergent validity, assessed with average variance extracted, revealed problems in the optimism subscale. The discriminant validity of the PCQ was confirmed by its correlations with Positive and Negative Affect and Big Five personality factors. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that this measure has incremental validity over personality and affect when predicting job performance.
ISSN:0033-2941
1558-691X
DOI:10.1177/0033294116686742