An Analysis of the Internal Structure of Levenson and Gottman's Social Competency Scale and Suggestions for Its Use

Some psychometric properties of Levenson and Gottman's (1978)social competency scale were examined using a large sample of college students. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the implicit two-factor structure (Assertion and Dating competency) did not fit the data substantially better than did alternative models and that there was only one major dimension of variation in the 18 items. Additional analyses revealed that males and females had very similar internal structures, reliabilities, and response levels. On the basis of these results we suggest that for studies of social competency among "normals" one should employ the inventory to produce a single measure by simply summing scores on the 18 items.