Cross-Ethnic Validity of The RS-14 Among Adolescents

Suzanne Pritzker and Anthony Minter from the Graduate College of Social Work at the University of Houston assessed the psychometric properties of the RS-14 in a sample of 2,983 early and middle adolescents. Of this total, 39% were Hispanic, 40% White, 7.5% African-American, 4.8% Asian, and 8.9% reported other ethnicities.

Cronbach’s α for the sample was excellent at .91 and was demonstrated across all racial/ethnic, age, geographic, and gender groupings. Mean and median scores for females and males fell into the range of moderate resilience, with scores for females significantly higher. Convergent validity was demonstrated with measures of social self-efficacy (r=.63, p<.001) and academic self-efficacy (r=.57, p<.001).

The authors write “…the RS-14 demonstrates the brevity, readability, and ease of scoring that have been identified as important characteristics when selecting instruments for use with children and adolescents.”

Reference:

Pritzker S, Minter A. (2014). Measuring adolescent resilience: An examination of the cross-ethnic validity of the RS-14. Children and Youth Services Review, 44: 328-33.