Beyond Pathways and Agency: Validating a Four-Factor Theory of Hope

ABSTRACT

Hope is eminent in the pursuit of progress; however, hope is a concept about which much is still to be understood. Ward and Wampler (2010) interviewed marriage and family therapists regarding their perspective of hope. From these interviews, Ward and Wampler developed a theory of hope. This article presents the results of two studies aimed to develop Ward's Hope Scale and to establish the psychometrics of the scale. Results provide information related to the reliability, validity, factor structure, and predictability of Ward's Hope Scale, and support Ward's Hope Scale as a more relationally focused alternative to the measurement of hope.

Notes

¹ Two groups of students included their own measures at the end of the survey to investigate other questions. Their research is not included in the present study because their individual sample N's were below 40 each and estimates would be too preliminary.

² We note in the Principle Components Analysis in the results section that the Evidence sub-scale items did not reveal strong reliability generally because four of the items loaded on the actions a willingness factor. The 20-item scale includes two new items to address the evidence of goal accomplishment from an external perspective, looking outside and finding others like oneself who are accomplishing similar goals.

³ The researchers computed binary logistic regressions, using each of the five subscales of Ward's Hope Scale to predict the categories to which each goal belonged. None of these calculations revealed any predictive validity (Mdn χ² = 4.724, all p's ≥ .110, Mdn Nagelkerke R² = .076).