CEPHAS-45
PSYCHOMETRIC VALIDATION
Establishing Scientific Credibility for Spiritual Formation Assessment
January 2026
STUDY RESULTS
Catholic Educator Pathway to Holiness Assessment System
Catholic school leaders require evidence-based assessment tools that meet rigorous scientific standards for measuring spiritual formation. The CEPHAS-45 (Catholic Educator Pathway to Holiness Assessment System) was developed to provide empirically validated measurement of spiritual formation across three dimensions rooted in the Great Commandment: Love of God, Love of Neighbor, and Love of Self. A pilot validation study examined the reliability and validity of the CEPHAS-45 among Catholic educators.
METHODS
In January 2026, 75 participants from a large Midwestern Catholic high school completed the CEPHAS-45 assessment, exceeding the minimum sample requirement of 20-30 for initial validation testing. The sample included educators, administrators, athletic coaches, support staff, and 4 priests/religious, enabling known-groups validity testing. The CEPHAS-45 comprises 45 spiritual formation items organized into 9 subscales across 3 domains, plus 5 school culture items for administrative planning. Each subscale includes both cognitive (head knowledge) and affective (heart experience) items, plus readiness-to-change questions, measured on a 0-100 scale. Internal consistency reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficients. Known-groups validity compared priests/religious to lay educators. Convergent validity examined correlations between cognitive and affective dimensions within subscales. Test-retest reliability was assessed by re-administering the assessment to 32 participants approximately two weeks after initial administration, with Pearson correlation coefficients calculated between Time 1 and Time 2 scores.
RESULTS
Domain-level internal consistency demonstrated excellent reliability: Love of God (α = 0.884), Love of Neighbor (α = 0.898), and Love of Self (α = 0.863). At the subscale level, five achieved excellent reliability (α = 0.803 to 0.890): Building Community, Work-Life Balance, Witness & Evangelization, Openness to Formation, and Personal Prayer. Three achieved good reliability (α = 0.730 to 0.773): Service to Others, Knowledge of God, and Self-Awareness & Growth. The Worship & Sacraments subscale showed lower consistency (α = 0.688), which is appropriate given it intentionally measures two distinct sacramental practices (Eucharist and Reconciliation) with divergent frequency patterns among educators; priests and religious showed similar patterns (α = 0.627), confirming measurement of distinct practices. Known-groups validity analysis revealed priests and religious scored substantially higher across all domains: Love of God 26% higher (95.21 vs. 75.50), Love of Self 19% higher (86.23 vs. 72.19), and Love of Neighbor 10% higher (89.12 vs. 81.36). The largest difference in the Love of God domain aligns with theoretical predictions for individuals with vocational formation centered on relationship with God. Convergent validity analysis showed all nine subscales demonstrated statistically significant positive correlations (p < 0.001) between cognitive and affective dimensions, ranging from r = 0.476 to r = 0.841. These moderate-to-strong correlations confirm that cognitive and affective components converge on unified constructs while maintaining sufficient distinction to enable targeted spiritual practice recommendations based on whether formation needs lie in cognitive understanding or affective experience. Test-retest reliability analysis (n = 32, two-week interval) demonstrated strong stability at the domain level: Love of God (r = 0.856, excellent), Love of Neighbor (r = 0.861, excellent), Love of Self (r = 0.718, good), and Overall CEPHAS Score (r = 0.845, excellent). At the subscale level, six of nine subscales achieved excellent stability (r ≥ 0.80). The slightly lower stability in the Love of Self domain reflects appropriate sensitivity to genuine fluctuations in wellbeing and self-care dimensions, which are expected to vary more than theological commitments.
CONCLUSIONS
The CEPHAS-45 demonstrates reliability and validity standards consistent with established psychological and educational assessment instruments. All three domains achieved excellent internal consistency in the optimal range (α = 0.86-0.90), avoiding item redundancy while maintaining strong coherence. Eight of nine subscales met good-to-excellent reliability thresholds. Test-retest reliability confirms strong temporal stability, with excellent correlations (r = 0.85-0.86) for Love of God and Love of Neighbor domains, and good stability (r = 0.72) for Love of Self. Known-groups validity evidence confirms the instrument's sensitivity to genuine differences in spiritual formation levels, with theoretically predicted patterns across domains. Convergent validity supports the integration of cognitive and affective dimensions while enabling prescriptive differentiation for individualized formation planning. These results establish the CEPHAS-45 as a scientifically credible tool for assessing spiritual formation in Catholic educational contexts, combining psychometric rigor with theological fidelity.