Evaluation of the Children’s Hope Scale in Serbian Adolescents: Dimensionality, Measurement Invariance Across Gender, Convergent and Incremental Validity

The main goal of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Children’s Hope Scale (CHS; Snyder et al., Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 22:399–421, 1997) in a sample of adolescents in Serbia. The sample consisted of 936 secondary school students in Serbia, with a mean age of 16.10 years. The CHS and its two subscales (Agency and Pathways) evidenced adequate internal consistency reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the two-factor structure of the CHS. Moreover, the two-factor model was found to be invariant across gender. The results provided support for the convergent validity of the CHS, by significant correlations with measures of positive expectations (optimism and self-efficacy), well-being (life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, loneliness, emotional distress) and related constructs (resilience, self-esteem). The Agency and Pathways subscales had similar correlations with measures of well-being, but they differed in associations with positive expectations, constructs related to resilience, and school achievement. Agency was more closely linked to optimism and self-esteem, while Pathways was more closely linked to self-efficacy and resilience. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that the CHS had incremental validity over and above conceptually related constructs (optimism, self-efficacy, self-esteem) in predicting subjective well-being, but not in predicting distress.