Adaptation of the Snyder’s dispositional Hope Scale for Italian adolescents

The present work focus on preliminary adaptation of Snyder’s Adult Dispositional Hope Scale (ADHS; Snyder et al., 1991a, b) for Italian adolescents. Members of the research team develop the Italian version of the ADHS engaging an completing a back-translation. The newly developed Italian version of the ADHS was then piloted with a subsample of adolescent to test its content validity and their understanding of its items and instructions. Once finalized, the Italian ADHS was included in a larger online assessment process launched in 2016 by the Istituto Toniolo di Studi Superiori. In this study we the data obtained by a sample of 3271 adolescents (45.1% male) ranging between 12 and 18 of age who completed this assessment. After a preliminary exploratory analysis of the data, a Confirmatory Factory Analysis (CFA) was completed to test the internal structure of the instrument, also exploring its gender invariance. Finally, an evaluation of its convergent validity was completed using the Life Orientation Test – Revised (LOT-R; Scheier et al., 1994). Our results show excellent model fit indices for a bi-dimensional structure of the ADHS, with Pathways and Agency as first order factors. A multigroup analysis of invariance showed the consistency of the structure across self-identified male and female adolescents. Finally, the Italian version of Snyder’s ADHS showed good convergent validity when explored in relationship with the LOT-R. This results show how the new Italian version of the ADHS can be used for clinical and research purposes.