A scale for evaluating the willingness of national forest farm to participate in forest carbon sink project.

In recent years, the development of Forest Carbon Sink Project (FCSP) has become a key focus within forestry sector. Despite this, decision-makers often lack reliable tools to assess forest owners' willingness to engage in this project. This study aims to develop, validate and evaluate a rational value perception scale as the tool to understand the willingness of forest manager. Based on the theoretical model we proposed, the Forest Carbon Sink Project Development Value Perception Scale (FORSCALE) was developed. The scale consists of two subscales, one is Perceived Benefit Subscale including three dimensions - economic, social, and ecological benefits, another is Perceived Risk Subscale comprising five dimensions - financial, performance, technical, time, and policy risks. Data were collected from 1014 employees across 95 major national forest farms of China. Both Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were employed to validate the multidimensional robustness of FORSCALE. The Multidimensional Graded Response Model in Item Response Theory (IRT) was applied for evaluating the rationality of FORSCALE. Our findings indicated that the scale exhibited a strong multidimensional structure and good model fit. Among the dimensions, ecological benefits, time, policy, and technology risks, were particularly salient to FCSP developers. IRT analysis revealed discrimination parameter ranging from 3.057 to 15.241 and thresholds parameter from -2.296 to 1.055, indicating that all 48 items of the scale possess high discrimination and reasonable thresholds. Additionally, all items demonstrated measurement accuracy that varied along the perceived attitude continuum, with better discrimination for participants holding neutral and negative latent attitudes. Finally, we made specific recommendations for item addition or deletion, and collapsing options to refine the scale. In conclusion, FORSCALE provides decision-makers with an effective tool for creating sound guidance schemes and can be widely utilized in future FCSP development practices.