Development of Street Harassment Scale for Women in Universities

Abstract

This study is aimed to discuss the manifestations of street harassment among women university students of Lahore. The initial phase of the study involved conducting semi-structured interviews. For this purpose, 20 women university students were interviewed and 19 items were generated. A list of 19 items was given to experts to assess content validity. After removing repetitive statements, 15 item scale was retained and validated by experts. The final 15 item scale was administered to 150 female participants. Factor analysis showed significant KMO value and Bartlett’s test of sphericity which indicated a significant correlation between the items with a few exceptions of weak loadings. Items 12 and 13 showed weak loadings, so these items were discarded and a 13 item scale was retained. Three-factor solutions were suggested through Principle Component Analysis via oblimin rotation and labeled as Behavioral, Verbal, and Eve Teasing. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was further done on a sample of 380 participants to confirm the factors obtained via Exploratory Factor Analysis which overall showed a strong construct validity of the scale and model fit after removal of three items. The final retained version of the scale consisted of 12 items. To assess the convergent validity of the indigenously developed scale, the Sexual Harassment Experience Questionnaire (Kamal & Tariq, 1998) was used as it assessed a similar construct. The correlation coefficient of the two scales was .49 (p < .01). Cronbach alpha value of the developed scale was .82 suggesting a strong inter-item correlation. There are myriad interventions on which the study sheds light.