Missionary Kids’ Value Scales

Abstract

The Missionary Kids’ Value Scales (MKVS) is a comprehensive, heterogeneous psychological scale designed to survey 18 distinct constructs relevant to the life experiences of individuals, known as Missionary Kids (MKs), who lived in other cultures during their formative years. The instrument’s intent is not to measure a single, cohesive group of constructs, but rather to capture the complexity of the cross-cultural experience and its impact on values.

The 18 measures cover three core value domains: religiosity, worldmindedness, and commitment to justice, alongside several contextual variables related to religious and cross-cultural interaction. Although initially developed for adult MKs who grew up in Brazil, the instrument is designed to be modified for use with other international populations. A unique feature of the MKVS is the ability to combine the Religiosity and Worldmindedness scales to measure the construct of World Christianity, a concept frequently utilized in evangelical missiology.

Keywords

Missionary Kids, MKVS, Religiosity, Worldmindedness, Justice Commitment, Cross-cultural Psychology, Missiology, Third Culture Kids, Brazil.

Authors

Sharp, L. W.

Purpose

The principal purpose of the Missionary Kids’ Value Scales (MKVS) is to provide a broad measurement tool for assessing the value orientations and contextual factors influencing individuals who spent their developmental years living overseas. The scale was specifically created for the adult children of missionaries, aiming to operationalize complex constructs such as religious commitment, global worldview, and commitment to social justice issues within this unique population.

The instrument’s primary value lies in its comprehensiveness, offering an array of constructs relevant to international populations in a single measure. Furthermore, the scale facilitates the study of World Christianity, defined as the demonstration of an expanded global perspective (in contrast to ethnocentrism) combined with a commitment to the values of historic Evangelical Christianity. Researchers are able to use either the complete instrument or select individual subscales depending on their specific research focus.

Construct

The MKVS is a heterogeneous instrument measuring 18 distinct scales across two major categories: Value Constructs (7 scales) and Contextual Scales (11 scales). The source content for many of the religiously oriented and worldmindedness items was drawn from previously established scales in sociology and social psychology, including those developed by King and Hunt (1972, 1975), Glock and Stark (1965), and Sampson and Smith (1957).

The specific constructs measured are:

• Value Constructs:
  • Religiosity: Commitment to the specific beliefs, values, and behaviors of evangelical Christianity.
  • Religious Orthodoxy: Degree of agreement with the beliefs of orthodox Protestant Christianity.
  • Religious Action: Willingness to return overseas for short- or long-term ministry.
  • Attitudinal Worldmindedness: Attitudes demonstrating acceptance and tolerance of people from other cultures and value systems.
  • World Systems: Attitudinal acceptance of differing concepts of national identity.
  • Social Distance: Willingness to become socially involved with different ethnic and socioeconomic groups, ranging up to intermarriage.
  • Justice Commitment: Frequency of actions taken to help the poor and needy in the past 12 months.
• Contextual Scales: Religious Interaction as Youth, Religious Interaction at School, Religious Interaction in the Home, Cross-Cultural Involvement as Youth (behaviors demonstrating involvement with the foreign culture), Cross-Cultural Interaction in School, Leadership, Justice Interaction as Youth, Parent-Child Relationship, Teacher-Student Relationship, School Involvement, and School Rating.

Validity

The measure exhibits high face validity, as each scale visually appears to relate clearly to the specific construct it intends to measure. However, formal data regarding convergent and divergent validity were not reported in the initial validation studies.

Construct validity was assessed through exploratory factor analysis applied to each individual scale. This process provided moderate support for the internal structure of the individual scales. Through iterative analysis, items that did not load on the first factor of their respective scales were eliminated, reducing the total item count from 171 to 88. The first factor explained 100% of the variance for most scales, with the exception of the Religiosity scale, which accounted for 92.7%.

A significant measurement difficulty noted by researchers is the uneven weighting of items within certain subscales due to the variety of answer formats (e.g., combining 4-point Likert scales with yes/no responses). This methodological inconsistency results in different item types contributing disproportionately to the total scale score. Further reliability and validity testing is advised for future research utilizing this instrument.

Reliability

The internal consistency of the scales was evaluated using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha. The reliability estimates varied widely across the 18 subscales. No test-retest reliability data were reported for this measure.

The alpha coefficients for the seven primary value scales were:

• Religiosity: .93
• Social Distance: .93
• Religious Orthodoxy: .86
• Religious Action: .81
• Justice Commitment: .66
• Attitudinal Worldmindedness: .64
• World Systems: .59

The scales for Religiosity, Religious Orthodoxy, Religious Action, and Social Distance demonstrated high reliability estimates (alpha > .80), making them suitable for research purposes. However, the remaining scales showed marginal internal consistency. Due to these varying results, the authors concluded that only the Religiosity and Social Distance scales have sufficient reliability to warrant use in individual testing, while the remaining scales are best suited for group-level research.

Factor Analysis

Each scale within the MKVS was subjected to an exploratory factor analysis using the method of principal factoring with iterations. The standard criterion for retaining factors was an eigenvalue of 1.0 or higher. A single exception was the “Religious Interaction in the Home” scale, which was retained for exploratory analysis despite having an eigenvalue of .75.

Following the analysis and refinement process, item loadings ranged from .38 to .89. The strong loadings of the remaining 88 items on the first factor provided moderate support for the intended unidimensional structure of most individual scales. Post-refinement, all scales demonstrated internal consistency coefficients of .60 or higher, with the exception of “Religious Interaction in the Home” (.45).

Instrument

Test Type: Paper-and-pencil self-report measure.

Format: Mostly forced-choice items utilizing a variety of 4- and 5-point Likert scales (e.g., “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree,” “never” to “very often”). A smaller number of items require rank ordering or yes/no answers. Each of the 18 subscales is scored separately, and no special instructions are provided for calculating total scores.

Language Available: English (developed for English-speaking MKs).

Population Group: Adults who have lived cross-culturally during their formative years, specifically adult children of missionaries who attended Christian schools.

Age Group: Adults (range 17–43 years; mean age 26.3 years).

Population Details: The measure was standardized on 533 adult children of Brazil missionaries (60.8% response rate). The sample demographic included 49.9% male and 50.1% female respondents. They averaged 12.4 years living in Brazil. The sample was highly religious (99% raised evangelical, 97.3% identifying as “born again”). Educationally, 56.9% had completed college degrees.

Test Methodology: The MKVS is simple to administer and interpret, requiring no specialized examiner skill. The items are self-explanatory, and subjects require no specific instructional guidance.

Keywords

Religiosity, Cross-cultural Involvement, Social Distance, Religious Orthodoxy, World Systems, TCK, Psychometrics, Cronbach’s Alpha, Factor Analysis, Brazil Missionaries, Evangelical Christianity.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Information not available in source.

Affiliation Email addresses: Information not available in source.

Correspondence Address: Information not available in source.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1988 (Dissertation) and 1990 (Primary Publication).

Permissions and Fees: Information regarding current permissions, copyright status, or fees for commercial or academic use is not available in the source material.

Reference’s

Sharp, L. W. (1990). How missionary children become world Christians: The role of the MK school and the local culture. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 18(1), 66-74.

Sharp, L. W. (1988). Patterns of religiosity, worldmindedness, and commitment to justice issues for Brazil-experienced missionary children (Doctoral dissertation, University of Calgary, 1987). Dissertation Abstracts International, 49(2).

Bibby, R. W., & Brinkerhoff, M. B. (1973). The circulation of the saints: A study of people who join conservative churches. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 12, 273-283.

Bibby, R. W., & Brinkerhoff, M. B. (1983). Circulation of the saints revisited: A longitudinal look at conservative church growth. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 22(3), 253-262.

Brinkerhoff, M. B., & Mackie, M. (1985). Religion and gender: A comparison of Canadian and American student attitudes. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 415-429.

Fichter, J. H. (1954). Social relations in the urban parish. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Glock, C. Y., & Stark, R. (1965). Religion and society in tension. Chicago: Rand McNally.

King, M., & Hunt, R. (1972). Measuring the religious variable: Replication. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 11, 240-251.

King, M., & Hunt, R. (1975). Measuring the religious variable: National replication. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 14, 13-22.

Sampson, D.L., & Smith, H. P. (1957). A scale to measure world-minded attitudes. The Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 99-106.

Items of the MISSIONARY KIDS’ VALUE SCALES

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

The original scale items are not explicitly listed in the source content provided; only the constructs measured by the 18 subscales are detailed. The subscales include:

• Value Constructs: Religiosity, Religious Orthodoxy, Religious Action, Attitudinal Worldmindedness, World Systems, Social Distance, and Justice Commitment.
• Contextual Scales: Religious Interaction as Youth, Religious Interaction at School, Religious Interaction in the Home, Cross-Cultural Involvement as Youth, Cross-Cultural Interaction in School, Leadership, Justice Interaction as Youth, Parent-Child Relationship, Teacher-Student Relationship, School Involvement, and School Rating.