Development and Validation of the Family Economic Model Scale

As an emerging science, family economy describes the family based on market exchanges. Its new explanation has caused the family to be governed by a rational order that destroys the individual and family relations. The criteria developed to measure the family economy are rooted in human capital and focus only on the material aspects of the family, while the family as a natural and fitrah-based institution is of a completely different nature from economic enterprises. Therefore, it is necessary to design scales based on Islamic principles and for the comprehensive growth of the family. The purpose of this study is to construct and validate a family economic questionnaire based on the theory of "Gradational family economics”. This theory provides a real and rational explanation of different families’ behavior in matters dealing, somehow, with a kind of economic motivation. It has presented its findings according to which families are fuzzily ranked, based on their degree of growth, into ten categories: enemy, irrational, natural, exploitative, collaborative, cooperative, fair, benevolent, sacrificing, and transcendent. This research has used the directed qualitative content analysis method to extract the family economy evaluation indicators, and conducted a survey on 387 households in Tehran. Results of the confirmatory factor analysis have shown that the data fit well with the factor structure and theoretical basis of the research, and the Cronbach’s alpha, structural reliability, discriminant validity and convergent validity criteria were confirmed as well. Thus, this questionnaire has the desired validity and reliability