Factor structure of a short version of SDQ-II among Omani school students

Rarely has the self-description questionnaire II (SDQ-II) been used with Arab samples. The Arab culture has unique characteristics that warrant investigating self-concept among individuals who are impacted by the culture. The SDQ-II has eleven factors and each is measured by 8 or 10 items. This study used a short version of the SDQ-II with an Omani sample (n = 700). The Arabic short version has nine factors with 4 items measuring each factor. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed twice: one with nine factors, and another with nine first-order factors and 2 high-order factors. The fit indices for the two models were acceptable and they were not significantly different. All of the items loaded substantially on their respective factors with mean loadings of 0.59. The correlation between the high-order factors was 0.79. All of the bivariate correlations were significant -except for two. The average of the correlations was 0.31 (range from 0.08 to 0.67), thus providing evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. The results indicate that self-concept dimensions can be used separately, and each of the high-order factors can be used as one instrument. The implications are that researchers and counselors can use the short form for research and assessment purposes.