Validation of the Adult Domain-Specific Hope Scale in Iranian Postgraduate Students

Background: The aim of the present study was to investigate psychometric properties and the Standardization of Simpson’s Hope Scale (1999) in Iranian university students. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-survey research, 1000 students with age range of 18 to 34 and with the mean age of 23.9±5.13 were selected via the categorical cluster sampling method from different universities. Then they answered the Snyder’s Hope Scale, Oxford Happiness Scale, the Ahwaz Hardiness Scale, the Beck Hopelessness Inventory, Riff’s Psychological Well-being Scale, as well as Sympson’s (1999) Hope Scale (with little change). Results: Coefficients of Cronbach’s alpha (0.94), split-half (0.85), convergent validity with Hardiness (0.40), Happiness (0.64), Psychological Well-being scales (0.47), divergent validity (Beck Hopelessness, -0.25) criterion validity (Snyder’s Hope 0.55) were calculated, which were significant at p < 0.01 level. The exploratory factor analysis showed that the 40-item Hope Scale for adults is saturated with five factors (social, academic, family, occupational, and leisure hope) that explain 56% of the scale’s variance. Second-order confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the five mentioned factors are well loaded on a principal factor, and therefore, the six-factor model was well fitted with the data (AGFI=0.93, RMSEA= 0.037, NFI=0.98). Conclusion: The results showed that this test has high reliability and validity and can be used in other studies.