Civic Activity Questionnaire - Instrument diagnostic of four types of active citizenship

Civic activity is a foundation of civil society. Its has been largely researched by sociologists and recently attracts a growing attention of psychologists. This paper outlines the theoretical background and a procedure for creating and verifying the empirical measure for researching active citizenship. Civic Activity Questionnaire (CAQ) was built on the basis of a theoretical model which distinguishes four types of active citizenship: social commitment, social participation, individual political activity and political participation. The results of three studies (739 participants in total), confirmed the theoretical model of civic diversity at the empirical level. The obtained parameters indicate the sufficient level of reliability and a satisfactory level of internal and external validity. peerReviewed publishedVersion