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General Attitudes Towards Marriage Scale: Psychometric Properties in Malaysian Adolescents of Divorced Families

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Abstract

Attitudes towards marriage in adolescence may influence the relationship quality in later years. There exist many measures of attitudes towards marriage which were validated among adolescents from two-parent family in the Western context. There is a need to validate measure of attitudes towards marriage in different countries. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Malay version of general attitudes towards marriage scale in a sample of 480 adolescents from divorced families in Malaysia. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a two-factor structure of general attitudes towards marriage scale, which explained for 60% of the variance. Additionally, the two-factor structure of general attitudes towards marriage scale demonstrated good fit to data in the confirmatory factor analysis (non-normed fit index = .941, comparative fit index = .958, root mean square error of estimation = .087, and χ 2/df = 4.615). Overall, the general attitudes towards marriage scale exhibited good internal consistency (α = .901), which supports the reliability of the instrument. The significant relationships between general attitudes towards marriage scale and other constructs also provided evidences to the convergent validity (r = .761, p < .001 with intent to marry, r = −.170, p < .001 with overt inter-parental conflict, and r = .523, p < .001 with mother–adolescent relationship). Significant gender difference was found in the report of general attitudes towards marriage scale (t = −2.265, p < .05). Thus, the translated general attitudes towards marriage scale is a reliable, valid, and practical instrument to measure attitudes towards marriage among Malaysian adolescents in divorced family setting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sunway University, Selangor, Malaysia

    Jia Yuin Fam

  2. Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia

    Siti Nor Yaacob, Rumaya Juhari, Zarinah Arshat & Firdaus Mukhtar

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  1. Jia Yuin Fam
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  2. Siti Nor Yaacob
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Correspondence to Siti Nor Yaacob.

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Ethical approval was obtained from Ethics Committee for Research involving Human Subjects of Universiti Putra Malaysia (JKEUPM).

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Fam, J.Y., Yaacob, S.N., Juhari, R. et al. General Attitudes Towards Marriage Scale: Psychometric Properties in Malaysian Adolescents of Divorced Families. J Child Fam Stud 26, 3351–3359 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0849-7

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