Positive Development on Campus: Investigating the Psychometric Properties of the College Assets Measurement Profile for Undergraduate Students

We introduce and evaluate the College Assets Measurement Profile for Undergraduate Students (CAMPUS), an assessment instrument for resilience factors in college-enrolled emerging adults. Developmental assets, its focus, are constructs proposed to protect against psychopathology, floundering, and riskiness, while also bolstering the likelihood of success, growth, and thriving. Literature reviewed covers emerging adulthood, unique challenges of college life, the developmental assets framework, and young adult resilience assessment. Research goals involved evaluating 3 indicators of the reliability of CAMPUS (internal consistency, temporal consistency, and item–total relationships) and 3 indicators of validity (factor structure, criterion relationships with symptomatology, and criterion relationships with life satisfaction). The sample consisted of 526 emerging adult university students with a subsample of 66 for test-retest analyses. Results indicated that the 120-item CAMPUS is reliable and valid for its intended population. Utility of the developmental assets framework for emerging adults is discussed. There is strong support for adopting CAMPUS for resilience assessment in college students.