ROMANIAN JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY RJEAP Vol 7, Special Issue 1, Aug. 2016 - PSIWORLD 2015 Proceedings www.rjeap.ro – www.psiworld.ro International Conference “Psychology and the Realities of the Contemporary World” - 6th edition - PSIWORLD 2015, 23-25 October 2015, Bucharest, Romania 367 #79 PAPER 110 - ALMOST PERFECT SCALE - VALIDITY OF A PERFECTIONISM SCALE ON A ROMANIAN UNIVERSITY SAMPLE Ana-Maria Cazan 81 Transilvania University of Brasov, Brasov, Romania Abstract The aim of the study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Almost Perfect Scale–Revised. We used both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis in order to study the construct validity of the scale. The participants were undergraduate psychology students. The reliability estimates for the three APS-R subscale scores showed a good internal consistency. The exploratory factor analysis confirmed a two factor structure. Using the confirmatory factor analysis, the two-factor model approached an acceptable fit. Correlations between APS-R subscales and grade-point average and other perfectionism measures provided convergent and divergent validity support. Keywords: acaemic adjustement; academic performances; perfectionims; factor analysis. 1. INTRODUCTION Perfectionism has been extensively studied in the recent years. While the initial research studied perfectionism as a unidimensional concept (Burns, 1980), nowadays the perfectionism is studied as a multidimensional concept, being assessed with different instruments, such as: The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Hewitt & Flett, 1991), The Positive and Negative Perfectionism Scale (Terry-Short, Glynn Owens, Slade, & Dewey, 1995), The Adaptive/Maladaptive Perfectionism Scale (Fong & Yuen, 2011), The Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (Slaney, Mobley, Rice, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001). The most widely used seems to be the Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (APS-R). The Almost Perfect Scale–Revised is a 23-item measuring three scales (High Standards, Discrepancy, and Order), designed to measure the multidimensional construct of perfectionism. The High Standards subscale (7 items) measures high personal standards for performance and achievement. The Discrepancy scale (12 items) measures respondents’ perceptions of themselves as failing to meet their personal standards for performance. The Order subscale (4 items) measures a preference for neatness and order. The authors of the instruments argued that perfectionism is not an inherently maladaptive personality dimension; instead, it is multidimensional, with some aspects clearly maladaptive but others clearly adaptive (Slaney, Rice, & Ashby, 2002). Previous research showed that Discrepancy scores were associated with depression, anxiety, interpersonal problems, life (dis)satisfaction, and acculturative stress; High Standards scores were associated with positive indicators of well- being, such as self-esteem or academic performance (Rice, Richardson, & Tueller, 2014). 2. METHOD 2.1. Aim of the study The aim of the study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Almost Perfect Scale–Revised (APS-R, Slaney, Mobley, Rice, Trippi, & Ashby, 1999). The construct validity of the scale was investigated. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +4 0740065734. E-mail address: ana.cazan@unitbv.ro