Adolescent Future Thinking Rating Scale

Abstract

The Adolescent Future Thinking Rating Scale (AFTRS), developed by Tang et al. (2024), is a specialized psychometric tool designed to measure adolescents’ personal thoughts, perceptions, and emotional responses regarding their future trajectory. The scale’s content was initially derived from extensive qualitative interviews, resulting in statements covering seven key thematic areas relevant to the target demographic.

The AFTRS exists in two distinct, validated forms: an 18-item version (AFTRS-18) and a shorter, refined 12-item version (AFTRS-12). Both versions were rigorously evaluated using a community sample of adolescents. The development process included comprehensive assessments of test validity, reliability, and various forms of Factor Analysis to establish robust psychometric properties suitable for clinical and research applications concerning youth Mental Health.

Keywords

Adolescent Psychology, Future Thinking, Developmental Measures, Mental Health, Future Positivity, Maladaptive Thinking, Ability to Visualize the Future, Psychometric Scale, Test Validation.

Authors

Tang, Peiyao, Sonuga‐Barke, Edmund, Kostyrka‐Allchorne, Katarzyna, Phillips‐Owen, Jacqueline

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Adolescent Future Thinking Rating Scale (AFTRS) is to provide researchers and clinicians with a standardized, reliable instrument capable of assessing key dimensions of adolescent future thinking. By quantifying these dimensions, the scale helps in understanding how future orientation relates to broader aspects of psychological well-being and Mental Health.

Specifically, the AFTRS aims to identify vulnerabilities or strengths in how young people conceptualize their futures, which can be crucial for early intervention strategies targeting related issues such as depression and anxiety in this age group.

Construct

The AFTRS measures the psychological construct of Adolescent Future Thinking. This construct encompasses an individual’s cognitive and affective processes related to anticipated events, goals, and outcomes in their personal future. It moves beyond simple expectation to include the ability to visualize, the level of positivity, and the presence of maladaptive concerns regarding future events.

The construct is broken down into three primary factors or subscales, reflecting a multidimensional view of how adolescents interact mentally with their future:

• Concerns about Maladaptive Future Thinking
• Future Positivity
• Ability to Visualize the Future

Validity

Comprehensive validation procedures confirmed the structural integrity and relevance of the AFTRS:

• Convergent Validity: This was strongly supported through Pearson’s correlation analyses, demonstrating that the AFTRS scores align appropriately with scores derived from existing, established measures of Future Thinking.
• Discriminant Validity: The scale successfully established discriminant validity by showing that its measurements were distinct and separable when compared against established measures of general cognitive risks, confirming that the AFTRS specifically targets future-oriented cognition rather than general cognitive deficits.
• Predictive Validity: Both the AFTRS-18 and AFTRS-12 demonstrated significant predictive validity, showing meaningful statistical associations with clinically relevant psychological factors, notably symptoms of depression and anxiety in the adolescent sample.

Reliability

The reliability of the AFTRS was established through robust testing of internal consistency and temporal stability (test-retest reliability).

Internal Consistency: High levels of internal consistency were observed across both scale versions, using Cronbach’s alpha (α):

• AFTRS-18: Alpha values for the three subscales were 0.90, 0.92, and 0.79.
• AFTRS-12: Alpha values for the three subscales were 0.86, 0.87, and 0.79.

Test-Retest Reliability: The temporal stability was assessed over a one-week interval, yielding high correlations (p < 0.001) for all subscales:

• AFTRS-18: Correlations were 0.87, 0.89, and 0.86.
• AFTRS-12: Correlations were 0.84, 0.85, and 0.86.

Factor Analysis

The factor structure of the AFTRS was rigorously explored and confirmed using multiple analytic techniques.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA): Initial EFA and PCA procedures applied to the 18 items resulted in the extraction of three primary factors, collectively accounting for 65.5% of the total variance. The subsequent refinement to the 12-item version resulted in a slightly stronger structure, explaining 69.8% of the variance, with a more streamlined distribution of items across the three factors.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA): CFA was used to test the hypothesized three-factor model. This analysis confirmed that the three-factor structure showed a moderate-to-good fit for both the AFTRS-18 (explaining 63.1% variance) and the AFTRS-12 (explaining 67.2% variance). Notably, the reduced 12-item version demonstrated a superior model fit compared to the longer version, supporting its use as the preferred instrument.

Instrument

Test Type: Inventory/Questionnaire

Format: The scale is available in two formats: 18-item (AFTRS-18) and 12-item (AFTRS-12). It is a self-report measure utilizing statements related to Future Thinking.

Language Available: English (Original development language)

Population Group: Human (Male and Female)

Age Group: Adolescence (13-17 years), extending into Young Adulthood (18-29 years), and Adulthood (18 years & older).

Population Details: The scale was primarily validated using a community sample of adolescents (respondents) in the United Kingdom, spanning an age range of 16-25 years.

Test Methodology: The scale development utilized comprehensive psychometric methods, including Test Validity (Convergent, Discriminant, and Predictive), Test Reliability (Internal Consistency using Cronbach’s alpha and Test-Retest Reliability), and advanced structural analyses (Exploratory Factor Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, and Confirmatory Factor Analysis).

Keywords

Adolescents, Youth Mental Health, Psychometrics, Test Versions, Developmental Measures, Expectations, Future Positivity, Maladaptive Future Thinking, Test Reliability.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier:

• Tang, Peiyao: ORCID
• Sonuga‐Barke, Edmund: ORCID
• Kostyrka‐Allchorne, Katarzyna: ORCID

Affiliation Email addresses: Contact the corresponding author listed in the reference.

Correspondence Address: Refer to the primary author’s institutional affiliation listed in the publication.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Items Available: The test items are currently not available publicly. Researchers and users seeking to obtain the test items must contact the corresponding author or the publisher for permissions.

Fee: Information regarding usage fees is not specified in the source material; contact authors for licensing details.

Test Year: 2024 (Year of publication and validation study).

Reference’s

Tang, P., Sonuga‐Barke, E., Kostyrka‐Allchorne, K., & Phillips‐Owen, J. (2024). Young people’s future thinking and mental health: The development and validation of the Adolescent Future Thinking Rating Scale. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 33(1), Article e1994. The official DOI link for the publication is: https://doi.org/10.1002/mpr.1994

Items of the Adolescent Future Thinking Rating Scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

The original scale items are not provided in the source content. Contact the authors for access to the AFTRS-18 and AFTRS-12 items.