School-life skills scale: Development of a junior high school student form

The purpose of the present study was to develop a scale to measure individual differences in school-life skills in junior high school students. School-life skills were defined as ones needed to solve the developmental and educational tasks faced by students during their junior-high-school years. The scale was based on the framework of school psychology for supporting students, which includes 4 aspects : academic, psychological/social, career, and health. Skill items were collected from 3 sources: the Life-Skills Development Scale-Adolescent Form, semi-structured interviews with 17 teachers, and skill descriptions provided by 108 junior high school students. Content validity was examined and preliminary study was conducted to select the items included in the scale. Then, a questionnaire of the 57 chosen items was completed by 809 junior high school students. As a result, a 54-item School-Life Skills Scale-junior High School Student Form was developed. Factor analysis yielded 5 subscales : self-study skills, career decision skills, group activity skills, health maintenance skills, and peer communication skills. The results also showed that the scale was moderately reliable and valid for measuring school-life skills in junior high school students.