psychometric properties of the trait hope scale in iranian students

aim and background: the aim of the present study was to investigatethe psychometric properties of the trait hope scale and its relation with psychological well-being of iranian university students. methods and materials: in this descriptivesurvey, 191 students of hamadan islamic azad university (mean age: 24.17 ± 4.30 years; range: 18-45 years) were selected through stratified randomsampling.the participants completed snyder's trait hope scaleand state hope scale, riff's psychological well-being scale, and beck hopelessness inventory. data was analyzed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, cronbach's alpha and split-half methods via spss 16 and lisrel 8.5 . findings: cronbach's alpha (0.83), split-half coefficient (0.80), divergent validity (with beck hopelessness scale,-0.20), and criterion validity (with snyder state hope scale, 0.55) were significant (p < 0.01). exploratory factor analysis showed that the 12-item hope scale for adults had one latent factor thatexplained 47% of the scale variance. firstorder confirmatory factor analysis indicated that 8items of the scalehad high factor loadings on one latent factor.univariate model appropriately fitted with the data (adjusted goodness-of-fit index = 0.91, root mean square error of approximation = 0.05, normed fit index = 0.98). in addition, there was a significant relation between trait hope and psychological well-being (r = 0.25; p < 0.01). conclusions: the trait hope scale has high reliability and validity and thus can be usedinfuture research.