Hope and the Academic Success of College Students
C. R. Snyder, Cynthia Wiklund, and Jennifer Cheavens
Psychology Department,
University of Kansas, Lawrence
500-1000 Word Abstract
Hope and the Academic Success of College Students
Snyder (1994) has developed a new theory of hope in which it is suggested that goaldirected thinking involves the perceived capability to (a) find routes to desired goals (the
pathways component), and (b) energize oneself to utilize those routes (the agency component).
Both the pathways and agency components are necessary to fully understand hopeful thinking.
Furthermore, hopeful thinking is posited to apply to any goals that are of sufficient importance
to demand considerable attention on the part of the person; moreover, such hopeful thinking
operates when people perceive an intermediate probability of obtaining the goal (e.g., neither
0% or 100% perceived probability of goal attainment should elicit hope).
Using this hope theory as a guide, a subsequent dispositional self-report index of hope
known as the Hope Scale has been developed and validated (Snyder, Harris, et al., 1991). The
Hope Scale has surpassed the normal psychometric standards regarding internal validity and
test-retest reliability; moreover, the scale has demonstrated discriminant and concurrent
validities. Furthermore, the Hope Scale has factored into the two posited agency and pathways
components, which together contribute to an overall hope construct (Babyak, Snyder, &
Yoshinobu, 1993). The Hope Scale also has been found to have considerable predictive power
in regard to outcomes related to health, adjustment, and coping more generally, even when
taking out the shared variances related to optimism, locus of control, positive and negative
affectivity, self-esteem, and other psychological variables (Snyder, Sympson, Michael, &
Cheavens, in press).
In the academic arena, Hope Scale scores have correlated positively with college
students' grades in several samples (Curry, Snyder, et al., 1997; Snyder, Harris, et al., 1991)
(such correlations remain when the variances related to high-school grades are removed).
Likewise, the Hope Scale has predicted significantly the final semester grades of college
students (even when removing the shared variance related to performances on the first
examinations of that semester) (Snyder, Harris, et al., 1991). Based on these positive goal
pursuit outcomes in nonacademic and academic arenas, it was predicted that individual
differences in trait hope as measured by scores on the Hope Scale should bear a positive
relationship with subsequent academic-related performances over the years of college life. In
this regard, the present six-year longitudinal study was undertaken to explore the predictive
capabilities of hope for the criteria variables of cumulative grade point average, dropping out of
school, and graduation.
Method
Male (N = 100) and female (N = 100) students participated in the experiment as a
means of fulfilling the research requirements of their introductory psychology courses. Within
one month of entering the University of Kansas, Lawrence, their participation in a longitudinal
study was obtained, including permission to obtain their ACT entrance examination scores, as
well as to track (through the Registrar's Office) their grades, dropping out, and graduating over
the subsequent years. At this initial setting, the students were administered the 12-item (4
agency, 4 pathways, & 4 distracters) dispositional Hope Scale. Afterwards, they were thanked
and dismissed.
Results
Findings revealed no differences in the female and male students on any measures.
Dispositional hope, however, significantly predicted grade point average, and it did so beyond
the variance related to ACT scores. Dividing the full range of Hope Scale scores into three
separate groups, the grade point averages for each were as follows: low hope = 2.45; medium
hope = 2.72; and, high hope = 2.85. In other words, there was almost one-half of a point
difference between the low- and high-hope students in their average grades. Also, reliably
more high-hope students had graduated than had their low-hope counterparts; moreover,
significantly more low- than high-hope students were dismissed in poor standing. Furthermore,
evidence suggests that those high-hope students who left did not do so because of difficulties
with their academic work; rather, those few high-hope students who withdrew did so while in
good academic standing.
Discussion
Previous research findings related to the benefits of children's and adults' hopeful
thinking in various life arenas are reviewed (Snyder, Cheavens, & Michael, in press; Snyder,
Hoza, et al., 1996), with a special emphasis on college academics. The implicit thinking
processes of higher hope students about goal-pursuit activities are described, with the
suggestion that the next step in research would be to teach incoming first-year college students
to think in this hopeful manner. The crucial question would be whether such hope training,
relative to no-training control comparison, would result in subsequent improvements in college
performances.
References
Babyak, M., Snyder, C. R., & Yoshinobu, L. (1993). Psychometric properties of the
Hope Scale: A confirmatory factor analysis. Journal of Research in Personality, 27, 154-169.
Curry, L. A., Snyder, C. R., Cook, D. L., Ruby, B. C., & Rehm, M. (1997). The role of
hope in student-athlete academic and sport achievement. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 73, 1257-1267.
Snyder, C. R. (1994). The psychology of hope: You can get there from here. New
York: Free Press.
Snyder, C. R., Cheavens, J., & Michael, S. (In press). Hoping. In C. R. Snyder (Ed.),
Coping: The psychology of what works. New York: Oxford University Press.
Snyder, C. R., Harris, C., Anderson, J. R., Holleran, S. A., Irving, L. M., Sigmon, S. T.,
Yoshinobu, L., Gibb, J., Langelle, C., & Harney, P. (1991). The will and the ways:
Development and validation of an individual differences measure of hope. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 570-585.
Snyder, C. R., Hoza, B., Pelham, W. E., Rapoff, M., Ware, L., Danovsky, M.,
Highberger, L., Rubinstein, H, & Stahl, K. (1997). The development and validation of the
Children's Hope Scale. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 22 (3), 399-421.
Snyder, C. R., & Sympson, S., Michael, S., & Cheavens, J. (In press). The optimism
and hope constructs: Variants on a positive expectancy theme. In E. C. Chang (Ed.), Optimism
and pessimism. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.