[Studying the psychometric properties of marital attitude scale]

ABSTRACT

Attitude toward marriage is one of the key mechanisms in anticipating real behavior in marriage and its assessment needs a valid instrument. The aim of this research was to investigate the reliability, validity, and factor structure of Persian version of Marital Attitude Scale [MAS, Brateen and Rosen, 1998]. In this descriptive-scaling research, the study population of this research was the B.A students studying at Isfahan University. The sample was 137 university students [including 51 males and 86 females] selected by stratified sampling. Marital Attitude Scale [MAS] and Marriage Expectation Scale [MES] were the instruments for collecting the data. Data were analyzed by factor analysis, MANOVA and Pearson correlation. The results showed that MAS has high and suitable reliability and validity for assessing university students' attitude toward marriage. The results of factor analysis revealed that MAS is a multidimentional instrument. Attitude toward marriage can be divided into two distinct and yet interrelated factors, attitude toward their marriage and general attitude toward marriage. The general attitude toward marriage includes pessimistic, optimistic and idealistic attitude. Furthermore, comparing the attitude of boys and girls, as a lateral finding, showed girls' attitude toward their marriage and general attitude toward marriage is more negative than boys, and girls have more pessimistic attitude toward marriage. In general, the marital attitude Scale is a reliable and suitable instrument to assess marital Attitudes