The Employment Hope Scale: Measuring an Empowerment Pathway to Employment Success

This chapter presents findings on revalidation of the Short Employment Hope Scale (EHS- 14) using a recently collected independent sample of 661 low-income jobseekers. This client- centered measure captures an aspect of multi-dimensional psychological self-sufficiency (SS) as a process-driven assessment tool. The original employment hope metric was constructed as a 24-item six-factor structure from its earlier conceptualization resulting from client focus group interviews.

The EHS measure was initially validated using an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), resulting in a 14-item two-factor structure with Factor 1 representing ‘psychological empowerment’ and Factor 2 representing ‘goal-oriented pathways’. In the following revalidation process using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), this 14-item two-factor EHS was modified into a 14-item four-factor EHS-14, with two higher order components, based on the original theoretical suggestion. The CFA result on the modified model adds another evidence for generalization, indicating that EHS-14 is a consistent and valid tool.