Examining Construct Validity of the Scale of Native Americans Giving Back

The purpose of this study is to use Indigenous data collection to present construct validity of an instrument designed to test the American Indian/Alaska Native Millennium Falcon Postsecondary Persistence Model (Lopez, 2018). In the following, I describe an alternative sampling technique based on an Indigenous quantitative methodology to examine how to operationalize the AI/AN Millennium Falcon Persistence Model (AMFPM) in social scientific studies. I used an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on 117 participants from the Quechan and Cocopah Nations who responded to 30 items. The EFA was set to extract 4 hypothesized factors. The interpretation of rotated scales was with variables loadings greater than.30 and loading on a single factor retained. The 4-factor solution accounted for 43% of the total variance in the items. All 4 of the scales had acceptable levels of internal reliability for empirical research (i.e., Cronbach’s alpha >.7). The exploratory factor analysis confirmed that all 4 of the original AMFPM factors (family, tribal, academic, institutional) were, in fact, captured by the Scale of Native Americans Giving Back. However, the analysis revealed that 2 of the factors merged (family and tribal support). Furthermore, the desire to give back and tribal identity emerged as separate constructs. The final scale that emerged in this study consists of 4 components of postsecondary persistence.