Revising the VIA-Youth: II. The Spirituality scale

ABSTRACT

This study extends a previous one revising the VIA-Youth. Goals of the revision included reducing length and extending age range down to 8. After an initial revision, further discussion suggested the need for a more secular version of the spirituality scale. Based on evidence of changes in the understanding of spirituality during adolescence, separate sets of candidate items were generated for ages 8–12 and 13–17 with two overlapping items. The revised materials were administered to 94,487 youth online and through two school districts. Retaining the two overlapping items in both sets did not reduce fit. The result is two versions of the inventory for ages 8–12 (VIA-Y-1) and 13–17 (VIA-Y-2) that differ only on two items included in the spirituality scale. These offer a measure of spirituality in youth that is developmentally sensitive without relying on items referencing a religious framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Character strengths
• VIA-Youth
• unidimensionality
• spirituality
• scale development

Acknowledgments

The research summarized in this article was funded in part by the VIA Institute on Character. We are deeply grateful to the school personnel who helped in the data collection.

Disclosure statement

Robert McGrath is a Senior Scientist and Ryan Niemiec the Education and Science Director for the VIA Institute on Character, the copyright holder for the VIA-Youth

Data availability statement

Data can be requested from the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the VIA Institute on Character.