Afrikaans adaptation of the children’s hope scale: Validation and measurement invariance

Abstract

The overarching aim of this study was to validate the Afrikaans version of Snyder’s (1997) Children’s Hope Scale in a sample of children from Cape Town, South Africa. Within this process, the study aimed to test the measurement invariance across the English and Afrikaans language versions. The study used a cross-sectional survey design, with a two-stage stratified random sample of 1022 children between the ages of 11- to 12-years-old. We selected the participants from 15 schools located in low and middle socio-economic status communities in the Cape Town Metropole. We used confirmatory factor analysis to analyse the data. The results indicated a good fit for the overall model using the pooled sample (X2 = 35.692; df = 7; p =.00; CFI =.984; RMSEA =.063; SRMR =.023). Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis further demonstrated the tenability of metric and scalar invariance. This indicates that the items on the scale has the same meaning across the two languages, and that the scores on the English and Afrikaans versions of the scale are comparable by correlations, regression coefficients, and means. The overall findings suggest that the Afrikaans translated version of the Children’s Hope Scale is an appropriate measure for use in the South African context.