Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of the Cognitive Social Capital Scale in a Colombian sample

During the last two decades, the concept of social capital has been used with increasing frequency in health sciences due to the direct and indirect relationships between social capital and populations physical and mental health. Therefore, it is necessary to build an instrument to quantify this concept confidently and reliably. The study aimed to perform exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on a seven-item scale to measure social capital in adults of Colombias general population. An online validation study was done, including a sample of 700 adults aged between 18 and 76 years; 68% were females. Participants completed a seven-item scale called the Cognitive Social Capital Scale (CSCS). Cronbachs alpha and McDonalds omega were computed to test internal consistency. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to explore the dimensionality of the CSCS. The CSCS presented a low internal consistency (Cronbachs alpha of 0.56 and McDonalds omega of 0.59) and poor dimensionality. Then, a five-item version (CSCS-5) was tested. The CSCS-5 showed high internal consistency (Cronbachs alpha of 0.79 and McDonalds omega of 0.80) and a one-dimension structure with acceptable goodness-of-fit indicators. In conclusion, the CSCS-5 presents high internal consistency and a one-dimension structure to measure cognitive capital social in Colombian sample. It can be recommended for the measuring of social capital in the general Colombian population. Further research should corroborate these findings on pencil and paper applications and explore other reliability and validity indicators.