Development of a Moral Skills Inventory for Middle School Students: A Study on Validity and Reliability

The aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable inventory to measure the moral skills of middle school students. For this purpose, an inventory of three scales: Cognitive Moral Skills, Emotional Moral Skills, and Social-Behavioral Moral Skills was developed. Within the scope of validity and reliability studies, item analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were applied. As a result of EFA, Cognitive Moral Skills Scale consists of 18 items and 4 dimensions, Emotional Moral Skills Scale consists of 15 items and 4 dimensions, and the Social-Behavioral Moral Skills Scale consisted of 15 items and 3 dimensions. As a result of EFA, the Cronbach's Alpha (CA) value of the Cognitive Moral Skills scale is 877, and the total variance explained is 51,21%; The CA value of the Affective Moral Skills Scale is 883, the variance explained is 61,929%; The CAvalue of the Social-Behavioral Moral Skills Scale was ,870, and the total variance explained was 54,256%. For the Cognitive Moral Skills Scale, RMSEA: ,067; SRMR: ,020; CFI: ,973; NFI:.965; GFI: ,970 and x2/SD: 4,2 were found. For the Emotional Moral Skills Scale, RMSEA: ,075; SRMR: ,020; CFI: ,975; NFI: ,969; GFI: ,973 and x2/SD: 3,57 were found. For the Social-Behavioral Moral Skills Scale, RMSEA: ,074; SRMR: ,020; CFI: ,972; NFI: ,966; GFI: ,971 and x2/SD: 4,95 were found. The findings show that the Moral Skills Inventory is a valid and reliable tool for measuring the moral skills of middle school students.