Development and Initial Validation of the Children’s Hardiness Scale

Abstract

Several measures have been developed in the past decades to assess the dimensions of hardiness in adult populations, whereas the same for children has remained relatively understudied. The present research has sought to develop and validate children’s hardiness scale (CHS) to assess hardiness attitudes in the respondents with age categories ranging between 10 and 12. Relying on a mixed-method approach, the research has been conducted in two studies. In the first, using both deductive and inductive methods, items were generated. The Content and face validity of the items was explored. To determine factor structure afterward, the exploratory factor analysis was conducted. In the course of the second study, confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the scale’s dimensionality and factor structure. The significant correlation between CHS, academic hardiness, and perceived stress, demonstrated the construct validity of the scale. Using the convenience sampling method, a total sample of 641 children participated in both studies. The results demonstrated that the final scale in line with the hardiness theory comprised three subscales: “commitment”, “control”, and “challenge”. The scale revealed acceptable internal consistency, reliability, and construct validity. Overall, the results of the current research indicated that a 20-item CHS can be applied in evaluating children’s hardiness attitudes. Further studies are required, however, to assess the applicability of the scale in different cultural populations.

Keywords

Children’s Hardiness Scale (CHS)scale development factor analysis psychometrics properties

Introduction

Life in the present age is associated with multiple fast-paced changes and stressful circumstances. Hardiness is a personality construct that helps us deal with those fresh difficulties in a creative way (Maddi, 2012). The construct of hardiness was introduced by Kobasa (1979) to explain the difference between individuals’ reactions to stressful situations. Personality hardiness is comprised of attitudes and strategies that prepare individuals to face life’s difficulties as they unfold. Hardiness attitudes include control, commitment, and challenges, and reflect people’s beliefs about themselves as they interact with the world surrounding them (Maddi, 2006, 2016). Commitment is characterized by the tendency toward involvement in the world as opposed to isolation and detachment. Control refers to this belief that by keeping trying outcomes can be influenced even if the situations are stressful. Challenge refers to perceiving life challenges and changes as a normal part of life and trying to turn them to learning opportunities (Kobasa, 1979; Maddi, 2002, 2012).

Previous studies have established the positive effects of hardiness on health and better performance in the different groups such as college students, cadets, and managers (Kelly et al., 2014; Maddi, 1999, 2002; Maddi et al., 2009; Tho, 2019). Eschleman et al. (2010), in their meta-analytic review of 180 studies on hardiness, demonstrated that hardy individuals are likely to show more life satisfaction, a better job or school performance, more optimism, greater self-esteem, and a sense of coherence as well as higher mental health, lower depression, and less anxiety. Hardy individuals endeavor to use their previous experiences to meet the fresh challenges ahead and turn them into learning opportunities and growth (Abdollahi & Abu Talib, 2015; Georgoulas-Sherry & Kelly, 2019). Hardiness provides existential courage to tolerate the anxiety of life uncertainty and choose to actively deal with them. Such courage leads to decisions that involve concrete action and learning as opposed to avoidance or denial. It motivates individuals to put hardy strategies of problem-solving, coping, socially-supportive interactions, and beneficial self-care into action for a more efficient face-off with life difficulties (Maddi, 2008, 2012; Maddi et al., 2006).

The development of hardiness starts from childhood (Georgoulas-Sherry & Kelly, 2019). Hardiness is learnable, and parenting practices can be effective in raising hardy children. Hardy attitudes can prepare children to cope effectively with the hardships of life, while simultaneously providing them with the courage to lead a creative and genuine life ahead (Maddi, 2012). Despite the importance of hardiness in childhood, few studies have addressed the issue. Presumably, one reason is the lack of proper measures to evaluate hardiness in children. However, over forty years of research on hardiness, various questionnaires have been developed for the adult population. Some of the most distinguished and widely used questionnaires are as follows: The Personal Views Survey (PVS), PVS II, PVS III, and PVS III-R (Kobasa, 1982; Maddi et al., 2006), and The Dispositional Resilience Scale (Bartone, 1991, 1999, 2007; Bartone et al., 1989). In other types of questionnaires, attempts have been made to assess hardiness in more specific areas. The most notable of such questionnaires are The Health-Related Hardiness Scale (Pollock & Duffy, 1990), Academic Hardiness Scale (Benishek & Lopez, 2001), and occupational hardiness questionnaire (Moreno-Jiménez et al., 2014).

Unlike the adult domain, little attention has been paid to the assessment of hardiness in children. Dimensions of Academic Hardiness Questionnaire (Kamtsios & Karagiannopoulou, 2013b) is one of the few questionnaires particularly developed for the children population, with the central concentration being on the evaluation of the dimensions of academic hardiness. The review of the available literature shows that one of the initial studies to develop a questionnaire for assessing hardiness in children is the Hardiness Scale for Children developed by Ferrara (2019). Some psychometric limitations of the scale as well as the need to further explore hardiness dimensions in the children population, highlight the necessity to introduce a measurement scale for hardiness attitudes in children. Therefore, the current study directed the goal toward developing and evaluating the psychometric properties of the hardiness attitude scale with a focus on children aged 10 to 12. Employing a mixed-method approach (qualitative & quantitative), the research was conducted in two major phases, labeled study 1 and study 2. It was hypothesized that the proposed scale will be a reliable and valid measure in evaluating the hardiness attitudes among Iranian children. To assess the convergent and discriminant validity, the hypothesis was based on the notion that a positive correlation holds between CHS subscales and Academic Hardiness, while the correlation between CHS and perceived stress remains negative.

Study 1: Item development

Method

In the first study, the items were generated and the factors were extracted. For clearer and more comprehensive items, a review of the existing literature, as well as exploratory qualitative research are recommended to be conducted (Boateng et al., 2018; Tay & Jebb, 2017). This is followed by content validity, face validity of the items, and the exploratory factor analysis. Content validity indicates how well the designed scale covers and represents a target construct and its domains (DeVellis, 2016). Face validity has been assessed by the final respondent to the questionnaire to obtain the target population’s understanding and comments on the clarity, appropriateness, and representativeness of the questions (Boateng et al., 2018). Factor analysis is employed for a variety of purposes. It is, for instance, utilized to determine the number of latent variables underlying a set of items. Also, it assists the developers with the identification of items that have low relevance to the already known categories or items that fit into more than one category (DeVellis, 2016).

Item generation

In this step, the literature related to hardiness and hardiness measures was reviewed. Afterward, for a deeper understanding of the hardiness dimensions in children and to obtain a sufficient number of items, the semi-structured interview with nine children was conducted and thematically analyzed.

Participants

The ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Department of Counseling at Alzahra University. Nine children (five girls & four boys) within the 10–12 age range (M = 11.11, SD= 0.75) participated in the study. We hypothesized that children with a higher score in the academic hardiness may represent higher hardiness in other life aspects. Therefore, purposeful sampling was used and children, who acquired a higher score in responding to the Dimensions of Academic Hardiness Questionnaire were selected (Kamtsios & Karagiannopoulou, 2013b). All the selected children were residents of the city of Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, located in western Iran. The participants belonged to the middle socioeconomic class. Parents of the interviewees provided written informed consent as child assent was also sought, while authority and freedom to leave the research at any stage was granted to the participants.

Procedure

A semi-structured interview was conducted by the first author during October to November 2019. The interviews were held inside school counseling rooms and lasted between 15 and 25 minutes. The purpose of the interviews was to identify the meanings that children give to their activities and pursuits, and during moments when they face challenges and failures in their everyday lives. There were initial guiding questions for the interviews, but the interviewer tried to link these questions to the real examples of the children’s daily lives in a comfortable and safe environment to gain more a genuine understanding of the children’s viewpoints and perceptions. The interviews were recorded and subsequently transcribed. For thematic data analysis, the six-phase method provided by Braun & Clarke, 2006; Clarke and Braun, 2016) was applied.

Findings

Following thematic analysis, three higher-order themes and eight sub-themes were identified. All codes and final themes were discussed by authors to obtain agreement. A list of themes and subthemes accompanied by brief descriptions is presented in Table 1. It is recommended that the number of items should be at least twice as many before being used in the desired final scale (Boateng et al., 2018). Thus, based on the identification of the construct domains, a pool of 39 items was generated to examine the results of the theoretical review and the thematic analysis.

Table 1.

Overview of the themes and sub-themes accompanied by a description.

Themes and sub-themes	Description
Commitment
Self-worthiness	Deserve to have a good life
Respect for personal growth	Keep trying to improve different aspects of personal life
Personal and social responsibilities	Cooperation, the give-and-take of social help
Control
Be mindful of personal abilities	Acknowledge and recall personal abilities while facing hardships
Purposeful emotion management	Be mindful of the emotions and consciously manage them to overcome obstacles
Challenge
The value of learning	Learning new things makes individuals stronger
Positive attitude toward change and challenges	Assuming change and challenges as a normal occurring in life
Enthusiasm for achieving goals	Sense of joy and passion for striving to achieve goals

Content validity of items

Since children made up the respondent population of this scale, efforts were made to design clear, simple, and concise questions. Authors, therefore, discussed individual items and tried to select the ones they agreed upon. Then, the qualitative results and the suitability of the selected items were shared with four experts familiar with the hardiness literature. To assess content validity ratio (CVR), a panel of eight experts familiar with child counseling and hardiness literature were asked to score each item on a 3-point Likert scale from “1 = not necessary to 3 = essential”. Afterward, the CVR following Lawshe’s (1975) formula was calculated as follows

CVR = \frac{n e - \frac{N}{2}}{\frac{N}{2}}

(ne = the number of experts indicating ‘essential’, N = total number of experts)

In the present scale, according to Lawshe’s (1975) table, the minimum value of CVR for each item should be equal to or above 0.75. Thus in this stage, 12 items were removed from the scale as their CVR stayed below 0.75. Also, the content validity index (CVI) was applied to explore the item relevance in a 4-point Likert scale from “1 = not relevant to 4 = quite relevant”. There are two kinds of CVI: item-level CVI (I-CVI) and scale-level CVI (S-CVI). To compute I-CVI, the number of experts, who gave 3 or 4 to each item, was divided by the total number of the experts. The acceptable CVI value with the panel of eight experts is suggested to be at least 0.83 (Lynn, 1986). There are two ways to calculate S-CVI based on the average method: 1. Sum of I-CVI scores/number of items, 2. Sum of proportion relevance rating/number of experts (Polit & Beck, 2006; Yusoff, 2019). In the present study, I-CVI for all items stood above 0.83 and S-CVI/Ave (based on I-CVI) was 0.96. Both scores demonstrated excellent content validity.

Face validity of items

The cognitive interview is the most recommended way to examine face validity (Boateng et al., 2018). Such interviews provide the scale developers with a clear method to identify and modify issues related to items’ clarity, ambiguities, and content coverage adequacy before gathering data in large samples (Peterson et al., 2017). As a result, in this step, two rounds of cognitive interviews covering 12 children were conducted. Based on the interviewees’ feedback, two items were deleted while six others were lexically and grammatically modified. The finalized scale at this stage consisted of 25 items.

Factor extraction

To examine the underlying factor structure of the CHS, the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted using SPSS version 25.

Participants and Procedure

The sample consisted of 316 children, aged 10–12 from 15 elementary schools in Sanandaj, Kurdistan, Iran (N = 319, 52.2% girls, 47.8% boys, 29.1% 10 yr, 34.8% 11 yr, 36.1% 12 yr). The demographic characteristics of participants are shown in Table 2. After the initial permissions were obtained from the Research Committee of the Kurdistan Province Education Office, data were gathered from 15 primary schools using the convenience sampling method. During the data collection process, 332 questionnaires were distributed. A total of 16 questionnaires were excluded, five of them due to incompleteness, while 11 others proved to be outliers (detected by calculating Z-scores). 316 children, therefore, formed the population of the participants. Before gathering data, children and their parents were provided with a description of the research. The consent forms and the demographic questionnaires were provided to the parents, who had agreed to their children’s participation. The demographic questionnaire had been attached to the consent form and was designed to collect descriptive information about the family and the child in particular. Only children, whose parents had signed the consent form, were included in the scale. Before starting to complete the scale, the children were informed about their freedom to leave the research at any moment. They answered the scale inside classrooms as the first author of the study provided them with clarifications they sought on the items. The scale completion took about 20 minutes. For this step, the initial version of CHS containing 25 items in a 4-point Likert-type range from “never = 1 to always = 4” was employed.

Table 2.

Demographic characteristics of the participants in study 1 and 2.

	Study 1				Study 2
Demographic information	f	%	M	SD	f	%	M	SD
Children	316				325
Gender
Girl	165	52.2			178	54.8
Boy	151	47.8			147	45.2
Age			11.06	0.80			10.99	0.81
10 year	92	29.1			107	32.9
11 year	110	34.8			112	34.5
12 year	116	36.1			106	32.6
Number of siblings
None	91	28.8			80	24.5
Less than two	118	37.3			144	43.1
Three and more	102	32.3			99	29.5
Missing	5	1.6			9	2.8
Family income (per month)
Low	105	33.2			113	34.8
middle	155	49.1			140	43.1
High	38	12.0			46	14.2
Missing	18	5.7			26	8.0

Results from EFA

Before conducting any statistical analysis, it is crucial to evaluate the normality of the sample distribution. To do this, skewness and kurtosis were assessed using SPSS 24. The skewness value between -2 and +2 and the kurtosis value between -7 and +7 can be considered acceptable to prove sample distribution normality (Byrne, 2013). Data analysis showed that skewness values stood between −1.79 and 0.40 while the kurtosis values fell within -0.93 and 2.91, thus suggesting that the data were normally distributed. Another main step before conducting EFA was evaluating the data appropriateness for Factor analysis using Kaiser Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and the Bartlett test of sphericity. The KMO value was 0.85, indicating that the sample size was adequate for factor analysis. The Bartlett test was significant (p<.001), supporting the argument that the data were appropriate for conducting EFA. To conduct an EFA, the principal component analysis with Direct Oblimin rotation was computed. Following the EFA, five items were removed from the scale as their factor loadings fell below.40. After excluding these items, a second EFA was conducted. The scree plot and eigenvalues greater than 1.0 were evaluated to determine the number of CHS factors. Based on the results, three factors, supported by the theoretical literature about hardiness dimensions, were extracted. The results showed that the three factors accounted for 65.75% of the total variance. The three factors respectively accounted for 29.67%, 18.91%, and 17.16% of the variance. Factor loadings ranged from .63 to .89. Table 3 presents a summary of the factor loadings.

Table 3.

Exploratory factor analysis of 20-item children’s hardiness scale.

No	Items	Factor loadings
No	Items	F1	F2	F3
5	I try to achieve the goals I love.	.82
8	When something happens to someone I help as much as I can.	.75
11	I try to do my responsibilities well. (Such as homework)	.85
12	I care about my physical health by taking healthy food.	.71
13	When I have a problem, I get help from those around me. (Like my family, friends, and teachers)	.83
18	I spend time learning different things because they will help me in the future.	.64
19	I’m happy to help my parents with housework. (Like cleaning the room)	.70
20	When I make a decision, I try to turn it into action.	.72
24	I do my homework on time.	.71
3	When facing a problem, I remind myself of my abilities.		.77
6	In the face of unpleasant situations, I know I can change them.		.68
7	When a task is harder than I expected, I keep trying.		.85
9	When facing a problem, I try to find a solution to it.		.89
10	I have enough ability to follow my plans.		.84
21	In the face of unexpected events, I try to keep calm and see what I can do.		.73
14	I like to learn new things every day.			.63
15	When I do something wrong, I try to detect my mistakes and fix them.			.87
16	When something new happens, I use my previous experience to deal with it.			.81
17	I enjoy moving toward my goals and facing problems along the way.			.86
22	I like changes in my daily activities.			.69

Notes: Factor 1: Commitment; Factor 2: Control; Factor 3: Challenge.

Study 2: Scale evaluation

Method

Tests of dimensionality, reliability, and construct validity were conducted in the course of the second study. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied as a way to test the construct’s dimensionality and to confirm the factor structure that emerged in the EFA. Reliability was also assessed through evaluating Cronbach’s alpha and the scale validity was examined by estimating the convergent and discriminant validity (Boateng et al., 2018; Carpenter, 2018). It is generally recommended that the data from a new sample be extracted for the CFA. Thus at this stage, data were collected from a new sample with an age range similar to that of the sample used in the first study.

Participant and procedure

The sample covered 325 elementary school children aged 10 to 12 (N = 325, 54.8% girls, 45.2% boys, 32.9% 10 yr, 34.5% 11 yr, 32.6% 12 yr). The demographic characteristics of the participants are presented in Table 2. After permission was obtained from the Research Committee of the Kurdistan Province Education Office, the data were collected from 16 primary schools in Sanandaj using a convenience sampling method. The processes of acquiring consent, gathering the demographic questionnaires, and collecting the data were remarkably similar to stage three in the first study. The completion of the questionnaires took nearly 50 minutes.

Measures

Children’s Hardiness Scale (CHS). After the completion of the CFA, the finalized version of the CHS consisted of 20 items that assess three dimensions of hardiness: nine items for commitment, six for control, and five for the challenge factor. Children rated items on a 4-point Likert scale from “never (1) to always (4)”. There was no item to be reversed.

Dimensions of Academic Hardiness Questionnaire (Kamtsios & Karagiannopoulou, 2013b).This self-report questionnaire comprises 36 items and nine factors, which examine dimensions of academic hardiness among late elementary school children aged between 10 and 12. A 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree) was used for answers. In their study, Kamtsios and Karagiannopoulou (2013a) showed that the alpha coefficient for the overall questionnaire was .91. In the current study, the same questionnaire was applied to estimate convergent validity. The total alpha coefficient stood at .80.

Perceived Stress Scale for Children (PSC-C; White, 2014). Comprising 14 items, the PSC-C was used to measure perceived chronic stress in children. A 4-point Likert scale was applied for answering questions ranging from 1 (never) to 4 (a lot). Questions 3, 6,7, 10, 11, and 13 have a reverse score. Item 1 is not scored. In her study, White (2014) reported that this questionnaire can help researchers and clinicians with the early identification of stress/anxiety in children. Thus in the present study, this scale was used as a measure to assess the discriminant validity of the HSC. In this paper, the Chronbach alpha coefficient for PSC-C stood at.80.

Results from CFA

Prior to calculating the CFA, the normality of the distribution was explored. The skewness values ranged from -0.95 to 0.04 while the kurtosis values fluctuated between −0.15 and 2.51. Therefore, the data were normally distributed. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using AMOS version 25. Evaluating different indices has been suggested to examine the model fit. With that in mind for the present study, several fit indices were applied: Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI) > 0.90, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) > 0.90, Root-Mean-Square of Approximation (RMSEA) < 0.80 and, CMIN/df <5 (Byrne, 2013). The result revealed that the model provided an acceptable fit to the data, and the factorial structure of the CHS was confirmed (CMIN/df = 1.86, CFI = 0.92, GFI = 0.91, and RMSEA = 0.052). The factor loading scores for all items were acceptable as they ranged between.50 (item 21) and .80 (item 15). Figure 1 presents the children’s hardiness scale model.

Figure 1.

Confirmatory factor analysis of the Children’s Hardiness Scale.

Reliability test results

Reliability refers to the degree of consistency and repeatability of the results of a measurement. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used to assess the internal consistency of the scale factors (Boateng et al., 2018). The Cronbach's alpha was found to be .83 for commitment, .79 for control, .77 for the challenge factor, and .85 for the entire scale. The results clarified the reliability of the scale at an acceptable level.

Convergent and discriminant validity results

To assess the construct validity of the CHS, the Pearson correlation of different dimensions of the CHS with the Dimensions of Academic Hardiness Questionnaires and Perceived Stress Scale was explored. Regarding convergent validity, we hypothesized that there would be positive correlations between CHS subscales and Academic Hardiness. As for discriminant validity, we anticipated a negative correlation between CHS and perceived stress. As indicated in Table 4, the significant positive correlation between CHS subscales and academic hardiness provides evidence for convergent validity. Our hypothesis about the negative correlation between the CHS and perceived stress was also supported.

Table 4.

Correlations between CHS subscales, DAHQ, and PSS.

	1	2	3	4	5
Children hardiness	1
Commitment	.820** [.97]	1
Control	.726** [.87]	.312** [.38]	1
Challenge	.693** [.85]	.414** [.51]	.318** [.39]	1
Academic hardiness	.838** [1.00]	.716** [.87]	.550** [.69]	.614** [.77]	1
Perceived stress	−.933** [−1.00]	−.786** [−.95]	−.666** [−.83]	−.630** [−.80]	−.821** [−1.00]

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Note. The numbers in brackets indicate the disattenuated correlation.

Given the high level of correlation between CHS and Dimensions of Academic Hardiness Questionnaire and Perceived Stress Scale, the disattenuated correlation was calculated using R software, version 3.6.2. As can be seen in Table 4 the results available in brackets point to a perfect correlation among all the three scales when disattenuated for measurement error.

Discussion

The current study was meant to develop a valid measure to assess hardiness attitudes in children within the 10–12 age range. The 20 items for three factors of children’s hardiness scale were developed and evaluated through a set of stages in the two studies. The guidelines recommended by Boateng et al. (2018), DeVellis (2016), and Carpenter (2018) were followed to carry out the design and validation of the scale. In the first study, 20 items were generated. Exploratory factor analysis in line with the theory of hardiness demonstrated a three-factor structure for children’s hardiness attitudes. Within study two, the confirmatory factor analysis provided an appropriate fit with the three-factor structure. In terms of convergent and discriminant validity, a significant correlation between CHS and two questionnaires were found. The results of the current study confirmed that the CHS can be used for assessing hardiness attitudes in children aged 10 to 12.

The CHS analysis represented three factors that reflected the three basic attitudes of hardiness in the previous literature, including commitment, control, and challenge (Kobasa, 1979; Maddi, 2012). Semi-structural interviews with children within study one helped us discern the hardiness dimensions through the lenses of Iranian children’s experiences and thoughts. The commitment factor (nine items) reflects this attitude in children, who consider themselves and life valuable and therefore responsibly pursue their personal growth. Thus, they open up to fresh learning and find new things useful for their future lives as well as their current growth. Kamtsios and Karagiannopoulou (2013a), in their qualitative research on conceptualizing students’ academic hardiness, categorized this learning attitude into a learning-orientation commitment. Based on the interviews conducted for the current research, it appears that for Iranian children, overall growth does not occur unless it incorporates and takes into account social growth. Therefore, the hardy child does have an active social exchange. This view could be traced in the characteristic Iranian collectivist culture. The result can conceptually expand the commitment construct in children.

The second factor, control (six items), demonstrates that while facing difficulties, we can continue our efforts and maintain efficacy. The result supports the previous description of control (Kobasa, 1979; Maddi, 2012). It seems that hardy children are mindful of their abilities and do optimize them while facing new developments and challenges. Also, they tend to manage their emotions consciously to solve problems and get their goals. The challenge factor (five items) refers to hardy children’s attitude in dealing with challenges and new experiences. Consistent with the hardiness literature, the hardy children see difficulties as an opportunity to learn and grow (Kamtsios & Karagiannopoulou, 2013b; Maddi, 2012). Another outstanding finding regarding the challenge factor was the children’s enthusiasm for achieving goals and facing problems actively. It seems that the effort to deal with hardships and cope with new situations for these children is associated with some types of joy and passion.

The findings support the construct validity of the CHS. A significant positive correlation between hardiness attitudes and academic hardiness in children was established. The result supports our initial hypothesis that children, who are hardy in their academic pursuit can be hardy in other situations, as well. The result of the negative correlation between hardiness and perceived stress is in line with previous studies (Abdollahi et al., 2015, 2018; Eschleman et al., 2010; Maddi, 2012; Soderstrom et al., Soderstrom et al., 2000). Based on the findings emerging from the present research, it would appear that children with higher levels of hardiness perceive their lives less stressful.

The results generated by calculating the disattenuated correlation mark a perfect correlation between CHS, its subscales and, Dimensions of Academic Hardiness Questionnaire as well as the Perceived Stress Scale. Thus this question arises as to what exactly is the specificity and innovation of CHS and how it exactly differs from the other two questionnaires and, why a researcher should decide to use this scale?

To address those questions, careful consideration of the objectives and items of the recent scale is essential. CHS tries to assess children’s hardiness attitudes in their lives and experiences and not simply in educational situations. Based on this goal and the results of the qualitative interviews with the children, items have been generated that seek to assess these attitudes from the perspective of children’s daily experiences such as items 8, 12, 13, and 19. For instance, in item 19 the commitment attitude is measured through an examination of the child’s daily experience gained through participation in everyday chores.

Furthermore, the qualitative analysis results helped us consider new findings linked to the children’s hardiness dimensions in CHS for the first time. Item 12, for instance, showed children’s commitment to their health or items 8 and 11 demonstrated children’s social responsibility and engagement as an important aspect of commitment. Another possible finding of interest regarding the qualitative part was the children’s sense of excitement and passion while facing challenges and striving for ambitious goals. Items 17 and 22 examine and shed further light on this aspect. Applying previous experiences (item 16) and recalling and acknowledging personal abilities while facing new situations (items 3, 6) may also help the researchers assess hardiness in children more comprehensively. Thus, it seems that the current scale can facilitate the researchers’ evaluation of children’s hardiness in everyday life situations rather than merely such specific environments as schools.

Most of the already conducted studies on the hardiness construct are centered on the adult population. One of the important reasons that hardiness in children remains understudied is likely the lack of appropriate measures in assessing the construct in this age group. Therefore, the present scale can be applied for future researches on the mentioned group. Also, nowadays stress and rapid life changes seem to make it incumbent upon us to raise our children attentively with hardiness attitudes. Thus, counselors and psychologists working on children’s hardiness attitudes in clinical or educational settings can apply this scale to take steps to address the issue.

One major limitation of the present study is that it was conducted merely in one city in Iran’s west, while the country is shaped by a variety of ethnicities. Thus, further studies should have been conducted in other cities covering other ethnicities as well. Another constraint is the respondents’ age range. The present research has been conducted on children of 10 to 12 years old. During pilot interviews within the 7–12 age range, we have noticed a wide gap between children and their understanding of their experiences. Consequently, for a deeper insight into the hardiness construct, we have decided to narrow down our focus group. We highly recommend that future studies works would investigate the applicability of the scale for other children in an extremely varied age range.

To sum up, the results demonstrate that the 20-item CHS can be employed and relied on as a valid measure in assessing the hardiness attitudes of children aged 10–12. The CHS is one of the primary scales in assessing children’s hardiness and can prove its usefulness to both researchers and practitioners. We do hope that the present study will contribute to the existing literature and will draw further attention toward research and practice in the field of children’s hardiness.

Supplemental Material

sj-jpg-1-prx-10.1177_0033294120945175 - Supplemental material for Development and Initial Validation of the Children’s Hardiness Scale

Supplemental material, sj-jpg-1-prx-10.1177_0033294120945175 for Development and Initial Validation of the Children’s Hardiness Scale by Fariba Soheili, Simin Hosseinian and Abbas Abdollahi in Psychological Reports

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all the children who participated in this research.

Author Biographies

Fariba Soheili is a PhD student in counseling at the Department of Counseling, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran. She has already published several articles about Adlerian psychology and parenting.

Simin Hosseinian is a professor at the Department of Counseling, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran. She has published many journal articles in the areas of the family counseling, ethics, and skills in counseling and psychotherapy.

Abbas Abdollahi is an assistant professor at the Department of Counseling, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran. He has published many journal articles in the areas of the resilience factors (e.g. hardiness and emotional intelligence) in several settings.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The study was derived from a PhD thesis written by the first author, and the group of authors has declared no potential conflicts regarding this research.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Simin Hosseinian

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