Development of Communication Styles Scale (CSS) for University Students: Qualitative Item Generation and Content Validation

Abstract

University life is one of the most challenging phases of a student's life because of the interplay of social and academic demands, resulting in anxiety and stress (Yan, 2025; Zhang et al., 2022; SAMFIRA, 2020). One of the challenges is maintaining good interpersonal relationships and communication is imperative to this (Horan et al., 2021, Griggio et al., 2019; Chandra, Mohammadnezhad, & Ward, 2018). However, as people vary both in verbal and non-verbal communication due to cultural differences (Mascarenhas et al., 2015); it is important to know more about this area to develop effective communication skills accordingly. The current study aimed to develop a scale to measure communication styles among university students. Following a rigorous literature review, which identified gaps in existing measures, two focus groups and three semi-structured interviews with clinical psychologists were conducted. After thematic analysis, a final pool of items was generated for expert review. For this, Content Validity Index was established by clinical psychologists through rating the relevance of the items to the construct (N=7) and 40 items were retained.