Development and validation of the mental internal friction scale (MIFS) for chinese college students

Mental internal friction refers to a state of mental burnout and lack of motivation caused by excessive cognitive depletion under strong pressure. This phenomenon is particularly prevalent among contemporary college students. However, there is currently no suitable quantitative tool available to effectively assess mental internal friction. Therefore, the present study aims to develop a mental internal friction scale (MIFS) and verify its reliability and validity within the Chinese college student population.

First, ten college students participated in semi-structured interviews. Then, 612 college students were recruited for item analysis and exploratory factor analysis. Subsequently, a new sample of 524 college students was recruited for confirmatory factor analysis, as well as reliability and validity evaluation. Finally, 161 college students were randomly selected from previous two samples to track the measurement and verify its retest reliability.

The developed scale comprised 21 items assessing four factors: avoidance, rumination, sensitivity, and indecision. The four-factor structure fit well (χ²/df = 2.527, CFI = 0.946, GFI = 0.920, IFI = 0.946, RMSEA = 0.054), explaining 60.967% of the total variance. All reliability indices-Cronbach's α, split-half, composite, and retest reliabilities-exceeded the 0.70 criterion for both the overall MIFS and each of its four subscales. Furthermore, the scale demonstrated good content validity, criterion validity, convergent validity, and discriminative validity, and passed the cross-gender invariance test.

The MIFS demonstrates solid reliability and validity among college students. It can serve as a quantitative measure of mental internal friction in Chinese college students.