디자인학 관점의 퍼스널 브랜딩 디자인 척도 개발 - 전문가 합의와 요인분석을 통한 타당화 검증 -

Background Although design practice has expanded toward collaborative, process-centered work, prior research on personal branding has remained focused on marketing, career management, and online identity, and has not been sufficiently operationalized as observable behavioral indicators within studio/project contexts. Accordingly, this study reconceptualizes personal branding from a design perspective—Personal Branding Design (PBD)—and models its core constructs as five factors (self-reflection, differentiation, consistency, visibility, and credibility) with the aim of developing and validating a measurement instrument. Methods We followed the standard scale‐development sequence (instrument development → content validity → construct validity). Content validity (CVI) and item clarity were established via two Delphi rounds with a 12-member multidisciplinary expert panel. For the main survey, we collected responses on seven-point Likert-type items from designers who had participated in at least one team-based design project within the past 12 months. We examined the latent structure using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), then conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on an independent sample to evaluate model fit (CFI/TLI/RMSEA), convergent and discriminant validity (CR/AVE/HTMT), and reliability (Cronbach’s α/McDonald’s ω). Result Following the Delphi consensus, Consistency and Visibility were reassigned as sub-behaviors of Credibility and Differentiation/Credibility, respectively, yielding a refined three-factor structure for PBD. Factor-level mean CVI values ranged from 0.87 to 0.89, indicating satisfactory content validity. In the EFA, sampling adequacy and sphericity were confirmed (KMO = 0.939, Bartlett’s test p < .001), and all items loaded strongly on their intended factors, empirically supporting the three-factor solution. The CFA demonstrated good overall fit (χ²/df = 1.587, CFI = 0.968, TLI = 0.939, RMSEA = 0.047). Reliability and convergent validity were established, with CR = 0.872–0.902, AVE = 0.577–0.649, and Cronbach’s α = 0.934–0.947, all exceeding recommended thresholds. Conclusion This study reconceptualizes personal branding as an observable system of design actions, evidence, and outputs, and rigorously validates a three-factor Personal Branding Design (PBD) scale—Self-reflection, Differentiation, and Credibility. The instrument can be used in design education and project management to diagnose and provide feedback on individuals’ PBD levels, and it offers a methodological foundation for subsequent criterion-validity analyses that examine PBD’s relationships with collaboration quality and designers’ individual design creativity.