Exploring relational and structural social capital among university students: A Rasch analysis approach

The limited availability of psychometrically robust and equitable measurement tools for assessing relational and structural social capital among university students remains a significant gap in the literature, particularly regarding the interaction between these two constructs. This study examined relational and structural social capital among university students in Indonesia using Rasch analysis. Data were collected from 685 university students in Kalimantan, Indonesia, using a 13-item instrument designed to measure the relational and structural dimensions of social capital. The Rasch model was applied to evaluate the psychometric quality of the instrument, including item reliability, model fit, item functioning, and potential gender bias through Differential Item Functioning analysis. The findings indicate that the instrument demonstrates strong psychometric properties, with high item reliability and satisfactory fit indices for both the constructs. Students generally showed positive responses to the relational and structural social capital items. The analysis also revealed a meaningful association between the two dimensions, suggesting that relational and structural social capital are interdependent rather than separate constructs in the university context. Differential Item Functioning results identified slight gender-related variations in the selected items, highlighting the importance of ensuring fairness in social capital assessment. This study concludes that the developed instrument is suitable for measuring university students’ social capital and contributes to the advancement of equitable psychometric assessment in higher-education settings. University students' responses were also comprehensively analyzed in this study.