Aspirations and Expectations Measures for Youths: A Systematic Review of the Literature

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Topic - Cognitive Processes

Abstract

The present study aims to raise the theoretical background, factor structure, and psychometric properties of scales measuring aspirations and expectations of adolescents and emerging adults across different life domains. We searched three online databases (PubMed, PsycNET, and ProQuest) for relevant articles using a string of search terms with four terminological cores. The four groups of terms related to: (1) age (adolescents, youth, etc.); (2) the psychological construct assessed (aspirations, expectations, etc.); (3) psychological measurement (scale, questionnaire, etc.); and (4) psychometric procedures (validation, reliability, etc.). Additionally, we searched the same online databases for articles containing the included scales’ name. Furthermore, we e-mailed the scales’ authors asking for articles not included in the search. We included only articles presenting psychometric properties of measures assessing future aspirations and/or expectations in samples with 12 to 30 years-old participants. From the 1845 retrieved articles, 30 met the inclusion criteria reporting psychometric properties of eight measures. Data were extracted and assessed by two raters, and a third rater was accessed for casting vote. The most frequent scales’ language was English and Spanish, and the most frequent data collection context was in the USA. We grouped the included scales according to their factorial structures’ semantic similarity and found five sorts of content measuring: (1) prospective life domains; (2) future lifestyle domains; (3) positive and negative future expectations; (4) career-focused domains; and (6) self/other focused domains of aspirations and expectations. Internal structure validity and reliability evidences were the only ones present in all studies. Findings suggests that the theorical background to measuring aspirations and expectations has a direct impact on the content of items. Therefore, the choice of a measure for data collection must be grounded on research questions.

Authors

• Bruno Capão de Oliveira, Universidade de Coimbra (UC)
  Presenting Author

• Vinicius Coscioni, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)
  Non-Presenting Author

• José Tomás da Silva, University of Coimbra
  Non-Presenting Author