Perseverance Scale for Adolescents: Testing New Instruments on a Belarusian Sample

The paper presents the approbation of a new questionnaire, the Perseverance Scale, for adolescents, taking into account the Belarusian context and reflecting the multidimensionality of this category. The Perseverance Scale contains three subscales: persistence in achieving goals, persistence in overcoming difficulties, and inappropriate persistence. The approbation was done on a sample of adolescents from different regions of the Republic of Belarus (N=425; aged 10 to 18 years; average age 14.8±1.4 years; 54.35% female). Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated good fit of the three-factor model to the data (CMIN/DF = 3.99; SRMR = 0.056; GFI = 0.92; IFI = 0.93; TLI = 0.91; CFI = 0.93; RMSEA = 0.084 [0.072; 0.096]) and invariance with respect to respondents’ gender, age, and country of residence (Russian Federation / Republic of Belarus). Perseverance Scale validity is confirmed by the expected correlations with the subscales of the “Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale” (MSLSS). The validity of the Perseverance Scale is also verified by the differences between the groups of students with different academic performance: higher rates of persistence in achieving goals and perseverance in overcoming difficulties were found among well-performing students. No differences in inappropriate persistence were found. The Perseverance Scale can be used in individual psychological counselling.