Validation of the School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised (SRAS-R) in the General Adolescent Population in China

Objective: The original 24-item School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised (SRAS-R) assesses four functions/conditions regarding school refusal behavior (SRB), bridging assessments, and treatments of SRB. No validated Chinese versions are available. Methods: To validate the Chinese version of the SRAS-R, an anonymous cross-sectional survey was conducted from February to March 2022 among 1108 secondary school students in Taizhou, China. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) did not support the original 4-factor model. Three items were thus removed in the exploratory factor analysis performed in the first half-spilt subsample, yielding a 5-factor model which was confirmed by CFA in the second subsample. The resulting 21-item scale/subscales of the Chinese SRAS-R generally demonstrated measurement invariance across sex and student types and satisfactory internal consistency, absence of ceiling effect and floor effect, and concurrent validity with the two external variables of preference of not going to school and depressive symptoms. Significant sex and student type differences in subscale scores were found. Conclusions: The 21-item and 5-factor Chinese version of the SRAS-R showed satisfactory psychometric properties and can be applied to research on SRB among Chinese adolescents. Future studies should validate it in other countries.