Development of the Early Childhood Self-Compassion Scale Parent Form (ECSCS-P)

Today, individual well-being studies point to childhood experiences and focus on concepts such as self-regulation, self-awareness, compassion and self-compassion. The aim of this study is to develop a measurement tool to determine the level of self-compassion in early childhood. The study was designed in the survey model, one of the quantitative research methods. The study group consisted of 509 parents of 48-72-month-old children attending official kindergartens and preschools in the central districts of Ankara province, selected by random sampling method. The 64-item item pool developed for the measurement tool was reduced to 47 items with expert opinions. As a result of the pilot study with 5 parents, the statements were edited and the scale was finalized. The 47-item form was administered to 309 parents, and 27 items were removed from the form as a result of exploratory factor analysis. The factor loadings of the remaining items ranged between .48 and .84 and these items formed a 4-dimensional structure. The new form was reapplied to 200 parents and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted with the data. As a result of the analysis, it was seen that the item factor loadings were between 0.435 and 0.833, x2 / sd (2.05) value was below 5, RMSEA (0.07) value was below 0.08, CFI (0.90) and TLI (0.89) values were acceptable and the 4-factor structure was confirmed. The Cronbach Alpha coefficients of the sub-dimensions were calculated as 0.745; 0.731; 0.742; 0.784 and Pearson coefficient r=0.53 for the test-retest application. Based on the data, it can be said that the scale consisting of 20 items and 4 sub-dimensions has a valid and reliable structure.