Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T06:32:39.377Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Validation of a Portuguese Version of the Aspiration Index for Adolescents (AI)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2020

Mónica Costa Open the ORCID record for Mónica Costa [Opens in a new window] ,
Paula Mena Matos Open the ORCID record for Paula Mena Matos [Opens in a new window]  and
Catarina Pinheiro Mota Open the ORCID record for Catarina Pinheiro Mota [Opens in a new window]
Mónica Costa
Affiliation:
Universidade do Porto (Portugal)
Paula Mena Matos
Affiliation:
Universidade do Porto (Portugal)
Catarina Pinheiro Mota*
Affiliation:
Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (Portugal)
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Catarina Pinheiro Mota. Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. Departamento de Educação e Psicologia. Vila Real (Portugal). E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Intrinsic and extrinsic types of motivation have been widely studied, and their importance on both developmental and educational practices has led to the development of assessment tools. The Aspiration Index scale (AI; Grouzet et al., 2005), which was developed to measure people`s life aspirations, was translated and validated into Portuguese. A sample of 1,359 adolescents, age ranged from 12 to 18 years-old, participated in the present study. Results showed that a factor structure with the eleven subscales of the AI does not fit the data. However we gathered support for a three-factor structure that organized the items in terms of whether aspirations are intrinsically, extrinsically or self-transcendent oriented. Internal consistency and temporal stability yielded good results. The predictive and criterion validities were demonstrated by significant associations with theoretically supported measures of satisfaction with life and father and mother attachment. The multi-group confirmatory factor analysis showed that this structure was invariant across gender. These results suggest that the AI is a reliable measure to assess different types of life aspirations and can be used in future research with adolescents in Portugal.

Keywords

aspirationsextrinsicintrinsicpsychometric analysisself-determination
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 23 , 2020 , e32
Copyright
© Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, and National Council on Measurement in Education (1999). Standards for educational and psychological testing. American Educational Research Association.Google Scholar
Bering, J. M, & Bjorklund, D. F. (2004). The natural emergence of reasoning about the afterlife as a developmental regularity. Developmental Psychology, 40(2), 217–233. http://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.40.2.217CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss . In sadness and depression (Vol. 3). Basic Books.Google Scholar
Brown, T. A. (2015). Confirmatory factor analysis for applied research (2nd Ed.). Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Cheung, G. W., & Rensvold, R. B. (2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 9(2), 233–255. http://doi.org/10.1207/S15328007SEM0902_5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croll, P., Attwood, G., & Fuller, C. (2010). Children’s lives, children’s futures. Continuum.Google Scholar
Crumbaugh, J. C., & Maholick, L. T. (1969). Manual of instructions for the Purpose in Life Test. Saratoga: Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy.Google Scholar
Cureton, E. E., & Mulaik, S. A. (1975). Weighted varimax rotation and promax rotation. Psychometrika, 40, 183–195. http://doi.org/10.1007/BF02291565CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curran, P. J., Harford, T. C., & Muthén, B. O. (1996). The relation between heavy alcohol use and bar patronage: A latent growth model. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 57(4), 410–418. http://doi.org/10.15288/jsa.1996.57.410CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goals pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 227–268. http://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Self-determination theory: A macrotheory of human motivation, development and health. Canadian Psychology, 49(3), 182–185. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0012801CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deci, E., & Ryan, R. M. (2012). Motivation, personality, and development within embedded social context: An overview of Self-Determination Theory. In Ryan, M. R. (Ed.), Oxford handbook of human motivation (pp. 85–107). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75. http://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flora, D. B., & Curran, P. J. (2004). An empirical evaluation of alternative methods of estimation for confirmatory factor analysis with ordinal data. Psychological Methods, 9, 466–491. http://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.9.4.466CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Buchner, A., & Lang, A.-G. (2009). Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 1149–1160. http://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.41.4.1149CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grouzet, F. M. E., Kasser, T., Ahuvia, A., Dols, J. M. F., Kim, Y., Lau, S., Ryan, R. M., Saunders, S., Schmuck, P., & Sheldon, K. M. (2005). The structure of goal contents across 15 cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 800–816. http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.5.800CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hatcher, L., (2013). Advanced statistics in research: Reading, understanding and writing up data analysis results. Shadow Finch Media, LLC.Google Scholar
Kasser, T. (2002). Sketches for a self-determination theory of values. In Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (Eds.), Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 123–140). University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Kasser, T., & Ryan, R. M. (1993). A dark side of American dream: Correlates of financial success as a central life aspiration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychological, 65(2), 410–422. http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.65.2.410CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Knee, C. R., Hadden, B. W., Porter, B., & Rodriguez, L. M. (2013). Self-Determination Theory and romantic relationship processes. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 17(4), 307–324. http://doi.org/10.1177/1088868313498000CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Knee, C. R., Patrick, H., Vietor, N. A., Nanayakkara, A., & Neighbors, C. (2002). Self-determination as growth motivation in romantic relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 609–619. http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167202288005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
La Guardia, J., & Ryan, R. (2002). What adolescents need: Self-determination theory on development within families, schools and society. In Pajares, F. & Urban, T. (Eds.), Motivation of Adolescents (pp. 193–219). Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar
La Guardia, J. G., Ryan, R. M., Couchman, C. E., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Within-person variation in security of attachment: A self-determination theory perspective on attachment, need fulfillment, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 367–384. http://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.79.3.367CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
La Guardia, J. G., & Patrick, H. (2008). Self-determination theory as a fundamental theory of close relationships. Canadian Psychology, 49, 201–209. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0012760CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Little, B. R.Salmela-Aro, K., & Phillips, S. D. (2007). Personal project pursuit. Goals, action, and human flourishing. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Marôco, J. P. (2014). Análise de equações estruturais: Fundamentos teóricos, software & aplicações (2nd Ed.) [Structural equations analysis: Theoretical foundations, software & applications]. Report Number.Google Scholar
Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Massey, E. K., Gebhardt, W. A., & Garnefski, N. (2008). Adolescent goal content and pursuit: A review of the literature from the past 16 years. Developmental Review, 28, 421–460. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2008.03.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matos, P. M., & Costa, M. E. (2001). Father and mother attachment questionnaire [Unpublished manuscript]. Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto.Google Scholar
Milfont, T. L., & Fischer, R. (2010). Testing measurement invariance across groups: Applications in cross-cultural research. International Journal of Psychological Research, 3(1), 111–121. http://doi.org/10.21500/20112084.857CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (2010). Mplus user’s guide (6th Ed.). Muthén & Muthén.Google Scholar
Neto, F., Barros, J. F., & Barros, A. (1990). Satisfação com a vida [Satisfaction with life]. In Almeida, L., Santiago, R., Silva, P., Caetano, O., & Marques, J. (Eds.), A acção educativa: Análise psico-social [Educational action: Psycho-social analysis]. Esel/Apport.Google Scholar
Niemiec, C. P., & Ryan, R. M. (2009). Autonomy, competence and relatedness in the classroom: Applying self-determination to educational practice. Theory and Research in Education, 7(2), 133 –144. http://doi.org/10.1177/1477878509104318CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Núñez-Rodriguez, S., de Souza, A. P. L., & Koller, S. H. (2016). Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the Aspiration Index (AI). Trends in Psychology/Temas em Psicologia, 24(3), 1169–1180. http://doi.org/10.9788/TP2016.3-20CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patil, V. H., Singh, S. N., Mishra, S., & Donavan, D. T. (2007). Parallel analysis engine to aid determining number of factors to retain [Computer software]. http://smishra.faculty.ku.edu/parallelengine.htmGoogle Scholar
Peralta, E., & Silva, M. E. D. (2003). Teste dos objectivos de vida (P. I. L.-R) [Life goals test]. In Gonçalves, M. M., Simões, M. R., Almeida, L.S., & Machado, C. (Coords.), Avaliação psicológica - Instrumentos validados para a população portuguesa [Psychological evaluation - Instruments validated for the Portuguese population] (Vol.1). Quarteto.Google Scholar
Patrick, H., Neighbors, C., & Knee, C. R. (2004). Appearance-related social comparisons: The role of contingent self-esteem and self-perceptions of attractiveness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 501–514.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reeve, J. (2002). Self-determination theory applied to educational setting. In Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (Eds.), Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 183–203). University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Rijavec, M., Brdar, I., & Miljković, D. (2011). Aspirations and well-being: Extrinsic vs. intrinsic life goals. Društvena Istraživanja, 20(113), 693–710. http://doi.org/10.5559/di.20.3.05CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 54–67. http://doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1999.1020CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Romero, E., Gómez-Fraguela, J. A., & Villar, P. (2012). Life aspirations, personality traits and subjective well-being in a Spanish sample. European Journal of Personality, 26, 45–55. http://doi.org/10.1002/per.815CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savickas, M. L. (2002). Career construction: A developmental theory of vocational behavior. In Brown, D. & Associates (Eds.), Career choice and development (4th Ed., pp. 149–205). Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. In Zanna, M. P. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 1–65). Academic Press.Google Scholar
Simons, J., Dewitte, S., & Lens, W. (2000). Wanting to have versus wanting to be: The effect of perceived instrumentality on goal orientation. British Journal of Psychology, 91(3), 335–351. http://doi.org/10.1348/000712600161862CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Hiel, A., & Vansteenkiste, M. (2009). Ambitious fulfilled? The effects of intrinsic and extrinsic goal attainment on older adults’ ego-integrity and death attitudes. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 68(1), 27–51. http://doi.org/10.2190/ag.68.1.bCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vansteenkiste, M., Lens, W., & Deci, E. L. (2006). Intrinsic versus extrinsic goal-contents in Self-Determination Theory: Another look at the quality of academic motivation. Educational Psychologist, 41, 19–31. http://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep4101_4CrossRefGoogle Scholar