Measuring the Unmeasurable: Maternal Piety Scales

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument that measures maternal spiritualcharacteristics. Particularly, the instrument aims to measure a domain of spirituality which iscommonly regarded as “the un-measurable” i.e. Maternal Piety. The study was conducted in twophases. The first phase was a longitudinal study of a focus group from an Islamic IntegratedPrimary School (IIPS). In, this phase Cronbach’s alpha was employed to assess the reliabilityindex. Accordingly, Principal Component Analysis was employed to explore the underlyingdimensions of Maternal Piety. The second phase was an ex-post facto study that involved 12 IIPSin the Klang Valley area. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was utilized to examine the constructvalidity of the instrument. Finally, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was utilized to investigatethe relationship between Maternal Piety (MP) and Maternal Quality Relationship (MQR) assupporting evidence for the criterion-related validity. The results provided evidence that theinstrument achieved sound psychometrics properties. This instrument succeeded the standardCronbach’s alpha 0.70 for internal consistency and the proportion of variance explained was 0 50 % for the three dimensions of Maternal Piety. The goodness-of-fit measures GFI, AGFI, IFI,TLI, and CFI were 0.90 and RMSEA was 0.08 which were evidences for construct validity.Moreover, the findings supported the postulation that MP positively influenced MQR as evidencefor the criterion-related validity. In short, Maternal Piety Scales is a reliable and valid instrument.From the practical standpoint, it suggests that spirituality is no longer remaining aloof intheoretical forms and neither exclusive for theologians only.