Authors : Ojo Monday; Olapegba Peter; Adudu Chiangi

Volume/Issue : Volume 11 - 2026, Issue 3 - March

Google Scholar : https://tinyurl.com/3rwacucr

Scribd : https://tinyurl.com/5x7b3yff

DOI : https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/26mar1995

Note : A published paper may take 4-5 working days from the publication date to appear in PlumX Metrics, Semantic Scholar, and ResearchGate.

Abstract : As the platform for electing political office holders is increasingly expanding to accommodate the institutions of independent candidacy in Nigeria, such candidates must possess required qualities that will attract and influence voters in their voting decision. Due to the dearth of direct psychometric-based measure of perceived quality of candidate, this study developed a generic scale to measure the construct in Nigeria context in order to ensure culture relevance using two thousand three hundred and nine (2309) randomly selected respondents from the three senatorial districts in Lagos State with ages ranging from 18-65 years old, a mean age of 25.2 and standard deviation of 9.7. This is a 13-item self-reporting scale in the Likert format with 5-point response options ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Result shows that the scale has content validity (using 80% agreements of experts). Reliability test of the scale revealed a Cronbach’s coefficient alpha of .86 with standardized item alpha of .88 and correlation between forms of .62. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) extracted three factors: compassion, respect and experience with eigenvalues ranging from 5.76 - 1.15 and cumulative percentage variance of 66.5. It was concluded that this scale is a valid measure of perceived quality of candidate among Nigerian voters. Future studies are suggested to explore probable culture- specific differences among the various ethnic groups in relation to their perception of quality of candidates for elective office.

Keywords : Elective Office, Perceived Quality of Candidate Scale, Psychometric, Validation, Culture-Relevance.

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