Assessing women's feminist identity development - Studies of convergent, discriminant, and structural validity

Researchers have called for increasing sophistication in the assessment of women's feminist identity development (Enns & Hackett, 1990; Hackett, Enns, & Zetzer, 1992) to understand important psychological processes. This seri es of studies examined recent efforts to operationalize Downing and Roush's (1985) model of feminist identity development. Specifically, the psychomet ric properties of two existing measures-the Feminist Identity Development S cale (Bargad & Hyde, 1991) and the Feminist Identity Scale (Rickard, 1987)- were examined in two studies with separate samples of women (total N = 486) . Results of Study 1 indicated the strengths and significant limitations as sociated with each scale (e.g., low internal consistency for some subscales , item-subscale inconsistency). A composite measure (derived from these sca les) with better overall psychometric properties is described. In Study 2, we found good support for the composite instrument's internal consistency, as well as convergent, discriminant, and factorial validity in a sample tha t included a wide age range and nonstudent community residents.