4.2.2. Proactive skill development
Skill development was measured using three items from Penley and Gould (1981) and used a Likert response format ranging from 1=(Strongly disagree) to 5=(Strongly agree). Upon examination of the internal consistency reliability of the scale, it was found that one of the items decreased reliability. Therefore, this item was removed for the purposes of analysis. The remaining two items that served as indicators of proactive skill development were —I gain experience in a variety of areas to increase my knowledge and skills and —I develop knowledge and skills in tasks critical to my future work life. The correlation between the two items was .63. Construct validity evidence for this measure was established through confirmatory factor analysis (Strauss et al., 2012).