Measuring student-perceived cultural sustainability competence in guzheng education: development and preliminary validation of the GCSCS

Introduction Cultural sustainability in guzheng education involves heritage understanding, embodied musical practice, creative adaptation, digital communication, and community participation. This study developed and preliminarily evaluated the Guzheng Cultural Sustainability Competence Scale (GCSCS) as a domain-specific self-report measure of students' perceived understanding, capability, judgment, and readiness. Methods The initial 20-item scale was reviewed by five experts and administered to 168 guzheng students from five higher education institutions in Northeast China. Item screening, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, descriptive statistics, and exploratory cluster analysis were conducted. Results Two items were removed because their factor-loading patterns did not clearly correspond to their intended dimensions. The final 18-item scale showed good sampling adequacy (KMO = 0.882), a significant Bartlett's test of sphericity (χ 2 (153) = 1228.887, p < 0.001), and an interpretable five-factor solution explaining 53.35% of the total variance. Internal consistency was acceptable to good across the five subscales (Cronbach's α = 0.752–0.846 and McDonald's ω = 0.757–0.846). Heritage identity and embodied performance literacy received relatively higher self-reported scores than digital communication and community-oriented dimensions. Exploratory cluster analysis yielded four descriptive learner-profile patterns, although cluster separation was modest. Discussion The findings provide preliminary psychometric evidence for examining multidimensional student self-perceptions in guzheng education. The results should not be interpreted as evidence of objectively demonstrated competence, stable learner categories, or causal effects of educational practices. Further validation in independent samples is needed.