A Cross-National Validation of the Short Employment Hope Scale (EHS-14) in the United States and South Korea

The Short Employment Hope Scale (EHS-14) has been developed in the United States to assess an individual's level of psychological self-sufficiency - a complementary measure to the widely used economic self-sufficiency in workforce development programs. This study examined the comparability of the EHS-14 between U.S. and South Korean low-income job seeker groups. A multisample confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and a series of invariance tests were conducted to validate EHS-14 using two independent samples. A latent means analysis (LMA) was used to test the latent mean difference between the two samples. The results indicate that CFAs on both U.S. and South Korean samples verified the four-factor structure of EHS-14. The study also found evidence for cross-national equivalence, based on satisfying configural, metric, scalar, and factor covariance invariance. LMA results found no significant difference between the two samples. EHS-14 was found to be a reliable and valid measure with cross-cultural applicability in the South Korean socio-politico-economic context. EHS-14 can be used to benchmark the client empowerment process and monitor individualized human development paths to employment success.