@2024 Afarand., IRAN

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ISSN: 2008-2630    Iranian Journal of War & Public Health 2020;12(3):181-188

Background
Killing in war leaves the wounded, who sometimes face physical or psychological problems at a period of life or forever. This problem has many psychological and behavioral consequences for veterans and their families [1].
Previous Studies
...[2]. To improve these relationships, it is necessary to pay attention to the youth of the families of the martyrs and their families' basic psychological needs. Achieving this goal first requires training in healthy behaviors and communication [3]. Undoubtedly, intelligence and morality affect different aspects of human life and establishes their positions in society. Borba defines moral intelligence as "the capacity and ability to understand right from wrong, to have strong ethical convictions and to act on them to behave in the right and honorable way [4]. …[5, 6]. Investigating the war veterans' families shows that following the physical and psychological injuries of soldiers because of the war events, their families also suffer psychological damage, which Figley introduces the term of secondary injury for the introduction of this theory [7]. …[8-18].
Aim(s)
This study aimed to design and validate the moral intelligence questionnaire's psychometric properties for adolescent children of martyrs.
Research type
This is a descriptive-correlation type with a test-construction approach.
Research society, place and time
The statistical population was adolescent boys and girls aged 14-18 years living in Tehran studying in primary and secondary schools in 2019-2020.
Sampling method and number
According to statistical sources, the appropriate number of samples for factor analysis is 300; 325 people were selected using the available method. So that, of the 11 districts of Tehran, districts 2 and 5 were selected. Then, simple random sampling of each region, 4 schools (2 girls 'schools and 2 boys' schools) were selected.
Used devices&materials
The research instruments included two questionnaires of researcher-made moral intelligence and Maslow's self-actualization [19]. This questionnaire's validity coefficient in a study based on Cronbach's alpha was 0.86, and based on the re-implementation method of the test was 0.84 [20]. Another study obtained 0.85 as the rate of validity coefficient by Cronbach's alpha [21]. In this study, the reliability of 0.92 was obtained using Cronbach's alpha test. Two questionnaires of moral intelligence and self-actualization were distributed among 14 classes. The researchers explained to the students that these questionnaires were used to collect data and will be done in complete confidentiality with their consent. The statistical methods of exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha, and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to design and validate the questionnaire's psychometric properties. Data were analyzed using SPSS 21 software
Findings by Text
Three hundred twenty-five adolescents participated in this study with an average age of 14.99±1.28. The highest and the lowest mean belonged to 19 and 7 of the moral intelligence questionnaire (Table 1). The skewness and kurtosis indices of all questionnaire items were in the normal range of 2% (Table 1).The Kaiser-Mir-Oliken index (KMO) was equal to 0.858, and the Bartlett sphericity index was equal to 7208.51 and statistically significant at the level of 0.01. Nineteen components with special values greater than one were extracted, which explained approximately 69% of the total variance (Table 2). The share of the first and last components explaining the total variance was 25.68% and 1.43%, respectively. Evaluation of the Scree test diagram showed that the Scree curve was broken at the location between components 5 and 6. Therefore, it can be inferred that the Scree test considers the number of extracted components to be 5 (Figure 1). After determining the number of components, the analysis was repeated for the second time by stabilizing the number of components with the number 5. This time the Varimax rotation was used to extract the components. Items 1, 26, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 45, 46, 47, 63 and 66 did not create a factor load greater than 0.4 for any of the components. Also, 21, 26, 35, 40, 41, 44, 49, 54, and 70 created a factor load greater than 0.4 on more than one component. For this reason, these items were deleted, and the analysis was repeated. The rotating factor loads in the principal components analysis showed that 17, 8, 8, 11, and 5 items constituted the first, second, thirst, fourth and fifth components of the questionnaire, respectively (Table 3). Then, after extracting the components, each of them was named based on the items' common meanings. Therefore, the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth components were named as the "preserving the dignity of others", "adherence to principles", "ethical sensitivity", "ethical self-efficacy," and "Ego capability", respectively. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha formula to measure the internal consistency of the extracted components of the moral intelligence questionnaire (Table 4). Given that all Cronbach's alpha coefficients were greater than 0.7, accordingly, all components of the moral intelligence questionnaire had good internal consistency. The correlation coefficients between the components of the moral intelligence questionnaire also showed that all components were positively correlated with each other at a significance level of 0.01 (Table 5). Also, the questionnaire's five components were positively correlated with the total score of moral intelligence at a significance level of 0.01. In general, according to the findings of Table 5, the moral intelligence questionnaire had a good internal correlation. The mean and Cronbach's alpha of the self-actualization variable were 77.57±13.72 and 0.907, respectively. All the moral intelligence questionnaire has extracted components that were positively correlated with self-actualization at the significance level of 0.01. Accordingly, the self-actualization questionnaire had good convergence validity (Table 5).
Main comparison to the similar studies
According to the results and the entire fitting indices, the model had an acceptable fit. In the confirmed model, seven factors provided by Barber were not confirmed [4], and there were also changes in the number of items so that the items were reduced to 5 items. …[22]. The new version of the ethical intelligence scale, including the propositions of preserving others' dignity, adherence to principles, ethical sensitivity, ethical self-efficacy, and Ego capability, was based on the scores that the teenagers obtained from these subscales in a moral intelligence questionnaire. The descriptive and inferential statistics results showed that based on exploratory factor analysis, the validity and reliability of the questionnaire were confirmed. Nevertheless, because of the changes in the questions to their localize, the requirements were not in accordance with the ratio of research factors assessment with the items considered by Borba. While confirming the validity and reliability, the components and factors were matched with the items and questions. The research questionnaire was expected to provide a good fit without removing the questions. Failure to fulfill this prediction can have different causes, including adolescents' unfamiliarity with moral intelligence and its components, poor attention to adolescents' moral education, given the emphasis of religion on morality, more is expected from parents in Islamic society. Also, due to this component's specificity, the possibility of bias in the response and the desire of adolescents to look better is possible.
Suggestions
It is suggested that future research examine adolescents' moral intelligence in other cities and compare between different genders, considering the mentioned limitations, according to the present scale, which has been prepared in accordance with the local conditions. It is also suggested to the educational authorities that they plan to educate and strengthen adolescents' moral intelligence.
Limitations
The necessary cooperation was sometimes not provided by the schools, and if there were more cooperation, the number of sample sizes would increase. Also, due to many items, the questionnaire was completed impatiently, which was resolved after detailed explanations of the test takers and clarification of the purpose of the research. Also, the present study was carried out between adolescents living in Tehran, making it difficult to generalize the results to all Iranian adolescents.
Conclusions
The moral intelligence scale designed as a model for measuring moral intelligence in adolescents with martyr parents in Tehran is reliable and valid due to socio-cognitive changes in Iranian society.
Acknowledgments
The researchers would like to thank the Veterans Engineering and Medical Research Institute's esteemed officials, the esteemed officials of the Veterans Schools in Districts 2 and 5, and the adolescents who helped this research with their cooperation.
Conflict of interest
There is no conflict of interest.
Ethical Permissions
No ethical permissions have been reported by the authors.
Funding Sources
This research has been supported by the Veterans Engineering and Medical Sciences Research Institute.

TABLES and CHARTS

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