Validating Scales for Tourism Impacts, Quality of Life, and Support Tourism: An Exploratory Factor Approach

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to validate measurement instrument that can be used to determine tourism impacts, people’s quality of life, and support for tourism. The primary data for this study were collected from 394 households in Maun, Botswana. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to measure internal consistency, construct and content validity to explicate the robustness of the factor structures, using principal component analysis (PCA) as an extraction method. Exploratory factor analysis is an applied statistical technique used by researchers to determine relationships within a group of observed variables. The reliability coefficients for the factors were all strong, which shows that the measures were reliable for measuring the latent constructs including economic, socio-cultural, and environmental impacts, people’s quality of life, and support for tourism development. The results of the factor analysis validate the measurement scale and authenticate the psychometric properties of the tourism impacts, quality of life, and support for tourism scale items. The main contribution of this paper is the development and understanding of psychometrically reliable scale items with content and convergent validity that can be used in tourism studies.