Measuring the Difficulties of Early Adulthood: The Development of the Quarter Life Crisis Scale

This study was conducted to develop a quarter-life crisis scale that can be used to measure the quarter-life crisis of early adulthood in Indonesia. Although it has begun to become a concern for researchers in Indonesia, the development of the quarter-life crisis scale has never been created. Some researchers have adapted the constructs developed by foreign researchers, which are not necessarily suitable for applicated in Indonesia. The development of this scale goes through 5 stages: conceptualization of the test; test construction; test trial; item analysis; and test revision. The test trial was filled by 181 early adults in Indonesia from Pekanbaru, Malang, Medan, Padang, Batam, Madura, Lombok, Pangkalan Kerinci, Solo, Surabaya, Jakarta, Bogor, and Yogyakarta. The results showed that there are 26 valid and consistent items that can be used to measure the early adult quarter-life crisis in Indonesia, which is indicated by the validity of the r count greater than r table and the Cronbach Alpha value of 0.854. How to cite : Afandi, M., Afandi, N. H., Afandi, S. A., & Erdayani, R. (2022). Measuring the Difficulties of Early Adulthood: The Development of the Quarter Life Crisis Scale. Jurnal Kajian Bimbingan dan Konseling, 8 (3), 167


Introduction
The transition from adolescence to early adulthood is unpleasant (Lindell & Campione-Barr, 2017).For some people, the transition period becomes confusing and sad while also triggering anger or helplessness.The transition that occurs from late adolescence to early adulthood causes helplessness felt by individuals aged 18-25 in their new roles as adult individuals.This reaction or condition is referred to as a quarter-life crisis (Robbins & Wilner, 2001;Syifa'ussurur, Husna, Mustaqim, & Fahmi, 2021).The early adulthood individuals who got a quarter life crisis were signed by seven indicators, including uncertainty in making decisions; hopelessness; having a negative self-assessment; feeling trapped in the life you live; anxiety about the future; feeling pressured by existing demands; and worry about interpersonal relationships (Robbins & Wilner, 2001).
The quarter-life crisis focuses on the crisis experienced by early adulthood individuals.In this case, there are various categories of early adult individuals.Some experts have different opinions regarding the limit of early adulthood.Putri (2018) claimed that early adulthood individuals are those aged 18-40.In Indonesia, early adulthood individuals are those starting from 21 years old (Putri, 2018).Meanwhile, Santrock mentioned that individuals aged 18-25 are those who are categorized as early adulthood individuals (Santrock, 2019).In this research, the category of early adulthood individuals is similar to Santrock (2019).
Moreover, according to Balzarie and Nawangsih (2019), this crisis experienced by early adulthood individuals is so burdensome because the changes that occur in various aspects of early adult life are more than transitions at other ages.In early adulthood, there are several new roles that are very different from the roles at the previous stage of development, namely late adolescence.The new role of this early adult individual is outlined in developmental tasks, which include: determining a life partner; learning to be a wife/husband; building a household; equating understanding with the family; household management; work; becoming a full citizen; be part of a social group that has the same understanding and values (Putri, 2018).
The quarter-life crisis phenomenon has been researched by many scholars around the world.It has been conducted on early adult individuals in Czech, Ireland, England, Turkey, and other countries (Cirklová, 2021;Duara, Hugh-Jones, & Madill, 2021;Murphy, 2011;Yeler, Berber, Ozdogan, & Cok, 2021).As a psychological construct, one of the researchers has developed a quarter-life crisis scale that contains 165 items and is adapted to the characteristics of Filipino society (James Philip Ray V. Pinggolio, 2015).However, the same scale for Indonesian has not yet been constructed.Although some Indonesian researchers had conducted studies related to a quarter-life crisis, the scale they adopted was not deliberately developed as a scale that can be specifically used among early adults in Indonesia (Agustin, 2012).Examining the inclination of crises that emerge among individuals in their early adulthood highlights the necessity of creating a scale specifically designed to gauge the extent of crisis encountered during this life stage.This scale should be tailored to suit the unique characteristics of Indonesian society.Therefore, this develops a quarter life scale crisis that can be used in early adult individuals in Indonesia.

Method
The quarter-life crisis is defined as the crisis experienced during early adulthood.Thus, in this study, the sampling was completed using purposive sampling, which focused on individuals aged 18-25 or as early adults, according to the category theory of Santrock (2019).There were 181 participants from several areas in Indonesia, such as Pekanbaru, Malang, Medan, Padang, Batam, Madura, Lombok, Pangkalan Kerinci, Solo, Surabaya, Jakarta, Bogor, and Yogyakarta.Moreover, the research design implemented the development of the Cohen and Swerdilk scale.The two main phases in this design are development and validation and the implementation of the Cohen and Swerdilk process.Additionally, there are five scale development design procedures that will be carried out, namely: test conceptualization; test construction; test trials; grain analysis; and test revisions (Swerdlik, 2009).
The initial procedure in developing this test was conceptualizing the test.In this case, we developed ideas on how to measure the quarter-life crisis construct properly.This process involved the preparation of prospective items, revisions, and deletions, all of which were adjusted through a literature review related to the concept of quarter-life crisis put forward by Robbins and Wilner (2001) with the seven indicators of quarter-life crisis.
After the test was conceptualized, the construction of the test was carried out, involving setting the rules to determine the number of measurements or determining the type of scaling to be used, then developing statement items.The final stage of the construction process was to determine scoring items, whether to use a cumulative, categorical, or ipsative model.In this study, measurements were carried out using the Likert Scale model, and items were arranged.In the end, a total of 28 items were developed based on input from experts in related fields.The scoring provisions used were categorization, similar to other available psychological test instruments.Furthermore, after the items were constructed, the test was tested.The target of respondents was in accordance with the target of potential users.Therefore, in this case, the trial was carried out involving early adult individuals in various regions in Indonesia.In addition, the results of the trial were analyzed, more precisely, using item analysis.The good item should be reliable and valid.To carry out this analysis, statistical analysis was used using Pearson Correlation Product Moment for validity and Cronbach's Alpha for reliability.Based on the results of the analysis, several items were observed to be not valid, but they were reliable, so revisions or removal of invalid items were needed.If any items were found to be dropped, a re-test was carried out on the revised items.

I deserve success because I have worked hard
There are two data sets obtained in this study; validity data attained using Pearson Correlation Product Moment and reliability data from Alpha Cronbach.All the tests were done using the SPSS application.The validity test was used to see the accuracy between the instrument of measurement and the object to be measured (Louangrath & Sutanapong, 2018).Meanwhile, the basis for making decisions for each item in this test is as follows: If rcount > rtable the item is categorized as valid If rcount< rtable the item is categorized as invalid The value of rtable in this scale was taken from The Level of Significance for 175 respondents (N=175), but because our total number of respondents was 181 (N=181), we selected N of 175 with rtable of 0.145 from 5% significance.Therefore, the items with a lower rcount of 0.145 were classified as non-valid items.The results of the Pearson Correlation Product Moment test are summarized in Table 2.According to the Pearson Correlation Product Moment test results, we identified two items with rcount<rtable, namely item no. 4 with rcount of 0.075 and item no. 12 with rcount 0.068.
In addition, reliability represents the measurement results consistency of a scale (Geourge & Mallery, 2018).In this study, we examined the reliability of the scale using Crobach's Alpha.The results of the reliability test are shown in Table 3.The foundation for making the decision on item reliability level is described in the following: if Cronbach's Alpha > rtable, then the scale is classified as reliable; if Cronbach's Alpha > rtable, then the scale is classified as non-reliable.
From our analysis, we obtained a 0.854 Cronbach's Alpha score.Therefore, the constructed quarter-life crisis scale has been reliable and capable of measuring the quarter-life crisis constructs consistently.

Discussion
The quarter-life crisis was first introduced by (Robbins & Wilner, 2001) when he was completing his dissertation.He observed helplessness among individuals during the early period of adulthood as they are demanded to complete numerous new roles as adults.Those roles, however, have been specified in the obligatory human developmental tasks.Further, (Robinson, 2019) asserted that individuals are commonly overwhelmed with their roles during their early adulthood stage, resulting in desperation.Besides, the quarter-life issues have been divided into a number of areas, namely dreams, and expectations, academic challenges, religion and spirituality, career and work, friendship, love life, relations, family, as well as self-identity (Chesbrough, 2011).
The established quarter-life crisis scale is expected to measure the quarter-life crisis experienced by Indonesian people during their early adulthood stage.This scale is also anticipated to aid in illustrating an individual's despair in their adulthood.This psychological construct was developed following the absence of reliable and valid scales up to recently.Consequently, many Indonesian researchers adopted the quarter-life crisis instrument proposed by foreign researchers.
The quarter-life crisis was established based on seven indicators of quarter-life crises proposed by (Robbins & Wilner, 2001).The descriptors of those indicators were expanded and used as the groundwork of the favorable and unfavorable items in the developed quarter-life crisis scale.Each of the indicators summarized in Table 4 is represented by four items, so we have 28 items in total.The alternatives for each item in the scale are presented in the following.

SA (Strongly agree)
: the statement highly correspond with your situation A (Agree) : the statement is less correspond with your situation DA (Disagree) : the statement does not correspond with your situation SDA (Strongly disagree) : the statement exceedingly does not correspond with your situation For the scoring, we followed the criteria presented in Table 5.Following that interval length, we formulated the quarter-life crisis categories presented in Table 6.Exceedingly low The analysis results on the items constructed using the procedures for psychology construct development proposed by (Swerdlik, 2009) suggested that two items should be terminated as they are not valid with rcount < rtable , namely items no 4 and 2. Further, the scale also has acceptable consistent results as indicated by the higher 0.854 Cronbach's Alpha score than the rtable 0.145.In the end, we have successfully constructed 26 valid and reliable items for measuring the level of the quarter-life crisis.As for revision, the non-valid item number 4 was replaced by item number 28, while item number 12 was substituted by item number 27.Following the revision results, the items for the quarter-life crisis are presented in Table 8. in achieving my life purposes 24 I place my family's expectations as motivation to be successful 25 I feel that I am stuck in my life, although I have taken college education 26 I think a life partner can be obtained through my recent relationship

Conclusion
Our analysis results suggested that the established quarter-life crisis scale containing 26 items from seven indicators is capable of measuring the quarter-life crisis experienced by Indonesian citizens in the early adult stage as it has gained sufficient validity and reliability.Therefore, this scale can be adopted by various stakeholders in assessing the quarter-life crisis of Indonesian people in early adulthood.

Table 8 . Quarter Life Crisis Scale No Statement
issues in establishing relationships with other people 18 I feel I have realized my future life goals gradually 19 I perceive that my numerous struggles have not been sufficient to generate the expected results 20 I have specific strategies to determine choices in my career, study, religion, and family life, including in achieving my life purposes No Statement 21 I regard my recent competencies are not sufficient to help me realize my dream 22 I am satisfied with my competencies 23 I experience issues in making decisions regarding my career, study, religion, and family life, including