Campus Life Adaptation Scale for nursing undergraduates: Development and psychometric evaluation

Background: As the number of studies about nursing students' adaptation to college life has increased, issues have surfaced regarding the validity of study results and the lack of valid and reliable instruments to measure nursing students' adaptation to college life. Study objective: To develop a valid and reliable instrument to measure nursing students' adaptation to college life in view of the educational demands. Study design: A methodological study design was employed to develop and test the measurement. Setting: Participants were distributed over a range of grades, from freshmen to seniors in six universities in Korea. Participants: Convenience sampling was performed with 813 students from six nursing schools in Korea. The mean age of the nursing students was 21.7 (+/- 4.70), and females were in the majority at 89.2%. Methods: Factors affecting campus life adaptation of nursing undergraduates were extracted by conducting a literature review and analyzing the interviews performed. Reliability and content validity were studied. The authors utilized a cross-validation measurement model using EFA with the first half of the dataset and CFA on the second half of the dataset to show the fit statistics of the factors identified via EFA verification. Results: Analysis of 34 items revealed six factors accounting for 55.1% of the total variance. The factors identified included interpersonal relationships, satisfaction with one's major, ease of studying one's major, stress management, preparation for employment, and academic commitment. The six-factor measurement models exhibited good fit indices. The concurrent validity, known group comparison, and reliability were satisfactory. Conclusion: This Campus Life Adaptation Scale will offer a framework upon which counseling and management strategies can be developed to help nursing students successfully adapt to campus life.