Costruzione e Validazione del questionario ISCOS: uno studio preliminare sugli Indicatori di Sviluppo del COunselling Scolastico

Construction and Validation of the ISCOS Questionnaire: A study on School Counselling Development Indicators. The aim of the study is to construct and validate a new questionnaire called ISCOS (Development Indicators of School COunselling) designed to measure specific usage profiles of counselling at school. These profiles related to couselling service are called Provoke Profile, Distrust Profile, Fear Profile and Trust Profile, as identified in previous exploratory researches (Freda et al., 2009; Esposito et al., 2010). These profiles have been conceptualized as symbolic and cultural models (Carli & Paniccia, 2003 and 2011) of the service representation. Another aim of the study is to investigate possible associations among these usage models and the influences of variables such as age and gender of the students. ISCOS was submitted to a number of 241 students (Female = 115; Male = 126) aged among 13 and 20 years (M = 16.23; ds = 1.81), attending a high school in Naples where a counselling service was already activated. The exploratory factor analysis showed the stability of two factors (Types of Investment and Retreat) that explain 37% of the total variance. Finally, for both factors was found a significant difference concerning only the gender variable. The questionnaire showed good psychometric qualities. It presents itself as an innovative tool designed to analyze specific emotional dimensions underlying the usage models identified. However, further investigations are deemed necessary to further diversifying and expanding the sample with regard to the origin and the field of studies.