Development and validation of social issues advocacy scale 2-short form

The Social Issues Advocacy Scale (SIAS) was published in 2011 as a tool to assess attitudes and behaviors associated with social justice advocacy. The scale was later revised to reflect updated theories and research, resulting in the 78-item scale, SIAS-2. Given the length of SIAS-2, this article reports on three studies with the aims to shorten the number of items and provide reliability and validity data. In Study 1, we developed SIAS-2 Short Form, consisting of 38 items and 8 subscales, measuring different aspects of social justice advocacy, replicating the scale structure of SAIS-2. In Study 2, we confirmed the scale structure, using confirmatory factor analysis, and examined construct validity. As expected, SIAS-2 SF was positively associated with political engagement, cultural openness, social justice self-efficacy, and engagement, and negatively associated with belief in a just world and cultural dominance. Total scale Cronbach's alpha was .94 (subscale alphas: .74-.87). As in Study 3, we examined test-retest reliability, with a score of r = .84 for the total scale score. The results revealed a 38-item scale with 8 subscales that appears valid and presents with good to excellent internal reliability. Limitations and implications are addressed.