Validation of the Employment Hope Scale (EHS) among summer youth employment program participants

•Validated measure for youth employment hope among African American youth.•Validated measure for assessing the levels of employment hope among disadvantaged youth.•Validated measure for empowering vocational aspirations in youth.•Meausring tool for the job-readiness among youth.•Measuring tool for identifying the reas that you need help during job-training and education. The purpose of this study is to validate the Employment Hope Scale (EHS) among vulnerable youth who are seeking to enter the workforce through a summer youth employment program (SYEP). Hong, Polanin, and Pigott (2012) developed the EHS as a client-centered measure based on its earlier conceptualization from the client focus group interviews resulting in an original delineation of a 24-item six-factor structure. Considering a dearth of reliable measures of youth employment hope, this study examined the applicability of EHS to the youth population by validating it using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results from a sample of 255 SYEP participants found an 18-item 5-factor EHS under two components: (1) psychological empowerment (self-worth; self-perceived capability) and (2) goal-oriented pathways (self-motivation; utilization of skills and resources; goal-orientation). Convergent, discriminant, and known-groups validity tests also confirmed that the EHS is a valid measure among SYEP participants.