البنية العاملية لمقياس تورنتو للألكسيثيميا (TAS-20) لدى عينة من طلبة جامعة القدس المفتوحة

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate the factor structure of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) among a Palestinian sample of students from Al-Quds Open University, using a descriptive approach. The study also aimed to test the fit of five competing models. To achieve these objectives, the TAS-20 scale, developed by Bagby et al. (1994), was administered to a cluster random sample of 381 university students, consisting of 145 males and 236 females. The (WLSMV) was used to examine the factor structure of the scale, using Mplus 8 software. Results indicated that the one-factor and two-factor models did not fit the data, while the three-factor, four-factor, and second-order models did fit the data. The best fit was achieved by the third-order model, with the following fit indices: χ2= 506.804*, df=167, RMSEA= .073, CFI= .985, TLI= .983. The study also demonstrated the convergent and discriminant validity of the scale, as well as its internal consistency, as evidenced by Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .884 and McDonald's omega coefficient of .849.