Estudio exploratorio de validez y confiabilidad de la Escala de Competencias Socioemocionales en estudiantes universitarios cubanos

After the pandemic, social-emotional competencies became more important in the achievement of comprehensive professional training. Cuba does not have adequate psychometric properties for their evaluation in tertiary education. Objective: To study the validity and reliability of the Socioemotional Competencies Scale in Cuban university students. Quantitative methodology, cross-sectional design, instrumental and exploratory type of study were used. The sample consisted of three groups of participants: 9 professionals (78% female and 22% male) with a mean age of 42 years (SD=12.7); the pilot sample, 100 students (49% female and 51% male; M=21 years; SD=1.53) and the final sample, composed of 355 students (58% female and 42% male), the age range from 18 to 26 years, with a mean age of 21 years (SD=1.53). Exploratory factor analysis was applied using the principal components method, the adequacy of the correlation matrix was previously verified and certainty was obtained on its adequacy of the correlation matrix was previously verified and its possible factorization was KMO index, and reliability was checked using Cronbach's alpha. The results show eight factors that explain 60.65% of the variance, related to emotional self-regulation, interpersonal regulation, empathy, motivation, conflict resolution and teamwork; they showed adequate reliability indexes for internal consistency and validity of the instrument. As conclusions, it is stated that the statistical evidence provided guarantees its usefulness in Cuban university students.