An assessment of the dimensionality of moos' social climate scale

A revised form of the Social Climate Scale (SCS) containing nine of the 14 subscales was given to 145 staff and 143 boys at a state training school for delinquents. A first principal factor was extracted from the item-correlation matrices for staff and boys, respectively. This factor was named Value, because of its representation of an evaluative item dimension. A factor model was used to test whether this Value factor might account for the significant subscale intercorrelations found in these samples. Maximum likelihood factor analysis of the subscale correlation matrices for both groups provided the test for this model. Through a least-squares rotation procedure on the maximum likelihood factor loadings, the Value factor was identified as the source of most of the subscale dependence. Implications for validation of the SCS and other related questionnaires by Moos are discussed.