Savahl Shazly
Child and Family Studies, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jun 3;11:1023. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01023. eCollection 2020.
A growing body of research has provided evidence for the cognitive motivational construct of hope as a psychological strength, particularly for children in adverse social circumstances. In children, hope is defined as a set of cognitions focused on children's agency to contemplate workable goals, to identify pathways to achieve those goals and the intrinsic beliefs about their capacity to activate sustained movement toward those goals. Using data from the third wave of the Children's Worlds International Survey on Children's Well-Being, the study aimed to explore children's hope amongst a random population-based sample of children in South Africa. The study further aimed to explore children's level of hope across the nine provincial regions of South Africa. Data were collected using Snyder et al.'s (1997) Children's Hope Scale (CHS). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to analyze the data, with multi-group CFA used to analyze the data across provincial regions. The study found an appropriate fit structure for the CHS using the overall pooled sample. The mean score on the CHS for the national sample was of 4.781 ( = 1.082). Measurement invariance demonstrated the tenability of scalar invariance, which indicates comparability across correlations, regressions and mean scores. Mean scores ranged from 4.511 ( = 1.163) for the Northern Cape to 4.982. ( = 0.974) for the Western Cape. Five provinces (Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Free State, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu Natal) scored below the national mean, while four provinces (North West, Western Cape, Limpopo, and Gauteng) scored above.
越来越多的研究为希望这一认知动机结构作为一种心理优势提供了证据，特别是对于处于不利社会环境中的儿童。在儿童中，希望被定义为一组认知，这些认知聚焦于儿童的能动性，即思考可行的目标、确定实现这些目标的途径以及对自己实现朝着这些目标持续行动的能力的内在信念。本研究使用儿童世界国际儿童福祉调查第三波的数据，旨在探讨南非以随机人群为基础的儿童样本中的儿童希望情况。该研究还旨在探索南非九个省级地区儿童的希望水平。数据采用斯奈德等人（1997年）的儿童希望量表（CHS）收集。使用验证性因素分析（CFA）来分析数据，多组CFA用于分析省级地区的数据。研究发现，使用总体合并样本时，CHS具有合适的拟合结构。全国样本在CHS上的平均得分为4.781（标准差 = 1.082）。测量不变性证明了标量不变性的合理性，这表明在相关性、回归和平均得分方面具有可比性。平均得分范围从北开普省的4.511（标准差 = 1.163）到西开普省的4.982（标准差 = 0.974）。五个省份（东开普省、北开普省、自由邦省、姆普马兰加省和夸祖鲁 - 纳塔尔省）得分低于全国平均水平，而四个省份（西北省、西开普省、林波波省和豪登省）得分高于全国平均水平。
