A Spanish-Language Version of the Herth Hope Scale: Development and Psychometric Evaluation in a Peruvian Sample

Abstract

Hope is a motivational/cognitive attribute that is theoretically necessary to initiate and sustain action toward goal attainment. The Herth Hope Scale (HHS) not only appears to tap into some of the same Agency and Pathways content of the commonly used Adult Hope Scale developed by Snyder et al. but also contains some more spiritual and social support-oriented content as well as more optimism content. The purpose of the current study was the development and initial psychometric evaluation of a Spanish-language version of the HHS, using a Latino sample. The study participants were 315 college students from a private university in Lima, Peru. Both first-order and a hierarchical, second-order factor analyses were conducted, yielding evidence of a theoretically salient four-factor structure similar to that found with the English version. Internal consistency of scores on the total and factor-analytically derived subscales were found to be satisfactory. It was concluded that the Spanish-language translation of the HHS appears to yield psychometrically sound scores and should have utility for studies of hope in Spanish-speaking samples.