The Inventory of College Students' Recent Life Experiences: a decontaminated hassles scale for a special population

Abstract

The development and validation of a new decontaminated hassles measure, the Inventory of College Students' Recent Life Experiences, are described. An initial pool of 85 items was administered to 100 undergraduates along with the Perceived Stress Scale. Forty-nine items were selected based on significant correlations against the Perceived Stress Scale. The alpha reliability of the resultant final form of the Inventory of College Students' Recent Life Experiences and its correlation against the Perceived Stress Scale were both high. In a separate cross-replication sample of 108 undergraduates, the alpha reliability of the Inventory and its correlation against the Perceived Stress Scale showed little shrinkage. Furthermore, separate analyses for male and female subjects supported the reliability and validity of the Inventory of College Students' Recent Life Experiences across gender. Factor analysis of the Inventory yielded seven interpretable factors. Intercorrelations among sub-scales based on these factors were generally modest, though in all cases significant, suggesting that the Inventory is relatively free of contamination by psychological distress.