Development and Validation of a Measurement Scale for Political Activism Among Young Adults Between 18 and 25 Years Old.

Young people show a declining interest in participating in traditional political participation and voter turnout (Soler-i-Marti, 2014). At the same time, alternative forms of political participation among the younger generations have emerged (Grasso & Giugni, 2021). This generation finds its alternative ways throughout Snapchat, Whatsapp, YouTube and TikTiok (Pel, 2023). To gain a robust understanding of youth activism, appropriate and validated measurement instruments are essential. However, many instruments used today do not reflect the changed political participation forms of young people. Moreover, many existing scales are derived from American studies, limiting their applicability in European contexts. Therefore, this study set out to develop and validate a new political activism measurement scale. The mixed-methods study was based on the scale development process by Boateng et al. (2018). The process began with a literature review, followed by an expert group meeting. This resulted in the development of two scales: the Intentional Activism scale, which measures the intent to engage in political activism, and the Actual Activism scale, which measures actual participation. Each scale consists of multiple constructs (dimensions), which represent specific forms of activism, measured through carefully developed items. Then, both scales were distributed by means of a survey. Special efforts were made to recruit young adults from Dutch activism groups. The study was conducted in May 2024. 159 young adults (Mean age = 20.9, SD = 2.37, 137 female, 42 male) participated in the study. All participants gave informed consent and the study was approved by the university’s department Ethics Committee. The sample met the requirements for validation, because sufficient factor loadings were above 0.80 and the participant/item ratio was above 5 (Tabachnik & Fidell, 2013). After data collection completion, a comprehensive principal factor analysis was conducted. This analysis resulted in five constructs per scale, namely Collective Activism, Oppositional Activism, Financial Activism, Verbal Activism and Online Activism, with in total 23 items for each scale. Collective Activism concerns activities with a political organization and Oppositional Activism concerns physical protest activities. Financial Activism concerns donating money, Verbal Activism concerns discussions, and Online Activism includes activities via social media. The Intentional Activism (M =61.49; SD =16.65; ⍺ =.94) and Actual Activism scale (M =48.24; SD =15.84; ⍺ =.93) showed acceptable reliability. Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests indicated that four of the five activism constructs showed significant differences, with intentional activism scoring consistently higher than actual activism (p < 0.05), which was expected. A Pearson correlation analysis showed a positive correlation between intentional and actual activism (r(161)=.781, p<.001). Recommendation for future research include a test with a more equal gender distribution in the sample, a more diverse education level among participants, and a test in other European countries. 50% of the sample shared that the themes housing, climate, human rights, equality and inclusion, healthcare, and war and defense were items that they were concerned about. This study contributes to the scientific understanding of youth activism by developing and validating a novel measurement scale that reflects contemporary forms of political participation for these concerns.