Translation and validation of the Resilience Scale for Higher Education Students

Abstract

Over the last decades, the concept of resilience (ability to overcome adverse situations through a positive adaptation) has interested researchers who try to explain the development pathways in risk or vulnerability situations. More specifically, some authors have tried to create scales to evaluate the perception of someone being (or not) able to face harsh or potentially stressful situations. The Resilience Scale (Wagnild & Young, 1993) appears to be an effective instrument to evaluate resilience in adults. The present work shows the primary data regarding translation and validation of resilience scale in Portuguese college students (451 students of College of Health Technology of Coimbra). This scale presents 25 items, scoring on a Likert scale with 7 points, with good internal consistency (α=.98), item-total correlations between.20/.59, and an exploratory factorial analysis revealing 5 factors (different from the structure found by the original authors) that explained 52,5% of the total variance; also, there was a negative and significant correlation between resilience and the trait of anxiety, measured by the STAI-Y (Spielberger, 1983).