Measurement of political calling based on the adaptation and validation of the Calling scale

Abstract

Despite the importance of vocation in the exercise of politics, social sciences have not been equipped with an element that allows them to work empirically with it. This article aims to present the whole process to set up and validate the political vocation scale from the calling scale of Dobrow and Tosti-Kharas (2011). The analysis of psychometric properties is carried out on a sample of members of Spanish youth political sections. Two adaptations were completed – professional politics field and Spanish cultural context –, and later, a validation of psychometric properties. In this way, the internal structure of the scale is analysed: dimensionality, reliability and validity; in this last point a distinction is made between discriminant and nomological validity. The scale has a good configuration with allows its use in future research.