Life Skills under the positive psychology framework

Positive psychology research improves youth development understanding (^{Lopez et al., 2018}). The positive psychology framework perspective allows focusing research from the preventive field (^{Snyder et al., 2013}), making an impact on health promotion. The promotion of experiences and contexts that provide LS should be encouraged from childhood (^{Lapalme et al., 2014}). This framework fits with the LS construct, which guided HVD-A scale creation.

^{Mangrulkar et al. (2001}) based their LS programs on complementary theories of childhood and youth: learning, problem behavior, social influence, cognitive problem solving, multiple intelligences, and resilience. Specifically in the Spanish context, ^{Oliva et al. (2010}) focused on health conditions that promote the development of skills, resources, or assets that improve social, academic, and professional life from an ecological perspective. This approach focuses on intervention possibilities to promote health and positive youth development.

Life Skills and self-efficacy

The multifarious developmental changes throughout the adolescent stages affect individual beliefs regarding the perception of competence. This competence perception increases self-confidence in the ability to solve problems, make decisions, face social challenges in various contexts throughout their lives, and overcome barriers (^{Bandura, 2006}). One of the most researched psychological constructs about competence perception is self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy is framed within positive psychology, due to the emphasis on the development of empowerment, that is, the notion that individuals can be “self-initiating” agents for change in their own lives and in others’ lives. In this sense, self-efficacy addresses human potential and possibilities, not limitations, which makes it truly positive psychology (^{Maddux, 2002}). Self-efficacy is a good predictor of diverse adolescent behaviors and defines self-evaluation of adaptation (^{Carrasco & Del Barrio, 2002}) and achievement (^{Barca-Lozano et al., 2012}).

General Self-Efficacy (GSE) is a psychological construct that indicates the individual perception of overall competence, as well as adaptive skills (^{Bandura, 2006}). In this sense, GSE implies a personal judgment of one’s own abilities to manage various life stressors (^{Bandura, 1987}). Based on their own competence judgments, the person organizes and executes actions, allowing them to achieve the planned performance (^{Bandura, 1987}).

To assess it, the GSE Scale (^{Schwarzer & Baessler, 1996}) has shown reliability and validity. No significant differences by sex have been found in Spanish adolescents (e. g., ^{Balaguer et al., 2020}, ²⁰²²; ^{Espada et al., 2017}; ^{Orejudo et al., 2013}) nor in other countries (e. g., ^{Lönnfjord & Hagquist, 2018}; ^{Marcionetti & Rossier, 2019}).

There is a scarcity of scientific literature about the relationships between self-efficacy and LS. ^{Caprara et al. (2001}) identified four types of self-efficacy in life skills: expressing positive emotions, managing negative emotions, creative solutions, and effective communication in social relations. They created an instrument under this focus which has been used in other studies (e. g., ^{Pastorelli et al., 2001}; ^{Sagone et al., 2018}, ²⁰²⁰). However, no studies have been carried out on GSE improvement through LS programs in Western cultures (e. g., ^{McMullen & McMullen, 2018}; ^{Rezayat & Nayeri, 2013}; ^{Srikala & Kishore, 2010}). Thus, it has been found that training youth in LS improves their self-efficacy to prevent and face different problems like diet control (^{Shudo et al., 2019}), substance use (^{Moeini et al., 2020}), or adolescent pregnancy (^{Machmud & Indrapriyatna, 2019}). Self-efficacy and LS also promote healthy outcomes such as psychological well-being (^{Sagone et al., 2018}) or resilience (^{Sagone et al., 2020}).

Life Skills in applied field. Programs and instruments

LS-based programs have contributed to improve youth education and development around the world (^{Nasheeda et al., 2019}; ^{Srikala & Kishore, 2010}). In recent years, some proposals for LS programs have been created under positive psychology and health promotion frameworks in the Spanish context (e. g., ^{Carrillo-Sierra et al., 2018}; ^{Corrales et al., 2017}; Gordón et al., 2017, ²⁰¹⁹).

However, the literature shows a scarcity of instruments to assess LS under ^{WHO (1993)} framework. Regarding specific stages, there are LS questionnaires specifically for late childhood (e. g., ^{Kobayashi et al., 2013}, validated by ^{Şimşek, 2019}) and for university students (e. g., Life-Skills Development Inventory-College Form, ^{Picklesimer, & Miller, 1998}). Some questionnaires that assess variables related to positive psychology and positive youth development have been developed (e. g., ^{Cassaretto-Bardales & Martínez-Uribe, 2017}; ^{Kennedy et al., 2014}; ^{Waigel & Lemos, 2020}), as well as for sports application (^{Cronin & Allen, 2017}) or for parenting strengthening (^{Petterson et al., 2016}). Other instruments that assess LS present some of the variables proposed by the ^{WHO (1993)} approach, but they have few items (e. g., ^{Kennedy et al., 2014}) or a high number of items (e. g., ^{Kobayashi et al., 2013}).

This lack of LS measures is more evident in Spanish. ^{Oliva et al. (2011}) created a scale of youth social skills that includes communication skills, assertiveness, and conflict resolution under the Positive Youth Development framework. However, LS instruments in Spanish are needed. As for that, the Daily Life Skills Education for Adolescents scale (named in Spanish Escala de Habilidades para la Vida Diaria para Adolescentes, HVD-A) was created to assess the impact of LS program Retomemos (^{Serrano et al., 2013}). Table 1 shows the relationships between the items of the HVD-A inventory and the LS.

The present study

The objective of this research is to analyze the relationships between LS and GSE and validate the HVD-A scale for its use in the psychoeducational field, under positive psychology framework. Concretely, we aim to identify its factorial structure and identify sex and age differences through multigroup analysis. In this way, psychometric properties of the HVD-A scale in Spanish adolescents were estimated.

The hypotheses proposed were the following: 1) The psychometric properties of the HVD-A scale, created under the ^{WHO (1993)} approach, are adjusted to a sample of Spanish adolescents. 2) The GSE and LS constructs, measured through the instrument HVD-A, have statistically significant relationships. Previous research has explored the relationship between LS and specific self-efficacy, (e. g., ^{McMullen & McMullen, 2018}; ^{Rezayat & Nayeri, 2013}; ^{Srikala & Kishore, 2010}) and none of them have not been reported in Spanish samples. 3) There are sexual and developmental differences in LS, as previous research has found (e. g., ^{Kennedy et al., 2014}; ^{Kobayashi et al., 2013}).

Method

Results

When analyzing the descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation, it can be observed that older girls obtained the lowest mean values, except on LS_3 (Decision making) and LS_7 (Interpersonal relationship skills). In general, the youngest boys and girls are the group with the highest mean values (see Table 2).

The measure of sample adequacy (KMO) was 0.92, and the Bartlett sphericity test was rejected with p < .001. The parallel analysis detected only one factor (eigenvalue observed = 5.02; simulated = 1.26). All the evaluated items obtained factorial loads greater than 0.4 units loading in this single factor, and adequate levels in the properties of the instrument (see Table 3).

The confirmatory analysis identified adequate fit levels of the unifactorial model (see Table 4). Regarding the General Self-Efficacy scale, used as an external validation instrument, it also showed optimal adjustment values: SRMR = .038, RMSEA = .064, and CFI = .94. The SEM analysis for the validation of HVD-A as a predictor of self-efficacy showed an optimal fit level for RMSEA, SRMR, and CFI (.051, .036, and .094, respectively), as shown in Table 4 and Figure 1.

* p < .05

Figure 1. Model with factor loadings 

Finally, from the invariance analysis for the four groups (young boys and girls, and older boys and girls), it was found that the models without restrictions neither in means nor in covariance structure were those that consistently showed optimal SRMR values and the best-fit values (SRMR = .045; RMSEA = .065; and CFI = .90). This result is in line with ^{Hu and Bentler (1999}), as they propose that this statistic is sensitive to identify problems in the covariance structure, as can be seen in Table 5.

When evaluating the covariance structure, it can be seen how the regression coefficients for items LS_1 to LS_7 inclusive are, in general, higher for men, especially for 12-14-year-old boys. In particular, items LS_6 and LS_7 show a low predictive level of LS in women (especially in 15-18-year-old girls), questions associated with social skills, that is, women’s social performance is not necessarily related to their LS. In contrast, item LS_8, related to coping strategies, obtained consistently high values in the four groups, especially for the two groups of girls. Finally, item LS_10, related to stress management, contrary to item LS_8, was the one with the lowest prediction, being especially low in the group of 15-18-year-old girls (see Table 6).

Considering the contrasts of the mean values of the total score, taking the model without restrictions on means and covariances, it does not show differences in the scores of the four groups. Compared to the contrasts under a model without restrictions, under the model without restrictions on covariances it is observed how this restriction makes the scores obtained in LS in boys significantly higher than in girls. With greater impact, in general, compared to 15-18-year-old girls, as shown in Table 7.

Discussion

The aim of this research was to analyze the relationships between LS and GSE. Specifically, on the one hand, to validate the HVD-A scale, under the positive psychology framework. On the other hand, to analyze the associations between the LS and GSE constructs.

Following the first hypothesis, it is confirmed that the psychometric properties of the HVD-A scale, created under the ^{WHO (1993)} approach of 10 LS, are adequate in Spanish adolescents. Thus the one-factor model was adopted. HVD-A scale is valid at the internal structure level as reported in the original one-dimensional version. It is also worth mentioning that, unlike the scales that assess LS under the WHO approach (^{Kennedy et al., 2014}, and ^{Kobayashi et al., 2013}) it has two positive aspects: 1) it considers the 10 items proposed by the WHO, and 2) its size (only 10 items) facilitates its implementation in field work.

Regarding the second hypothesis, it is confirmed that the GSE and LS constructs have statistically significant relationships. A close relationship between GSE and LS has been found, as deduced from the SEM model. It shows that the adolescent individual competence perception is closely related to their cognitive, emotional, and social competence perception. These results were as expected based on the previous scientific background (^{Pastorelli et al., 2001}; ^{Sagone et al., 2018}, ²⁰²⁰). This result also confirms the external validity of the HDV-A instrument.

For the third hypothesis, results reveal developmental and sex differences. In fact, the girls’ scores, especially in mid-late adolescence, could be underestimated in the management of stress and in interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, in the models compared by sex and age groups, they showed optimal values in standardized residuals, which were not subjected to restrictions -neither in means nor in covariance structure-. However, the latter showed better-fit indices in general.

There are no relevant intergroup differences in the models. However, in the covariance structure, it has been found that boys -especially the 12-14-year-old ones- have obtained higher values in the regression coefficients of items LS_1 (Coping with emotions) to LS_7 (Interpersonal relationship skills) of the HVD-A scale. These results would be the opposite of other studies in other contexts (e. g., ^{Kennedy et al., 2014}; ^{Kobayashi et al., 2013}). ^{Kobayashi et al. (2013)}, although their sample was in a different context and age -that is, in late childhood in Turkey- found in their validation that girls’ scores on most scales were consistently higher than boys’ scores, and individual variations between girls’ scores were relatively low. ^{Kennedy et al. (2014)} found that Indian boys scored lower than the girls did in overall LS score, but only in the 11-13 year age group, not in the 8-10 age group, nor in the 14-16 year age group. This disparity of results across contexts makes it more difficult to propose different educational interventions depending on gender.

Regarding the applicability, in some items, the HVD-A scale may underestimate the scores in girls of middle-late adolescence. Especially, those related to stress management and social relationships. It is important to recognize that this instrument deal with a self-report instrument and it is possible that the cognitive competence development and self-abilities assessment generates this effect. Another explanation could be that an instrument with more than one factor would be more appropriate for women in mid-late adolescence.

Results of this study show that the HVD-A scale can be useful both for the scientific and the applied psychoeducational field. In fact, LS influence the youth’s needs in terms of their health and development, so the inclusion and evaluation of this comprehensive approach allow students to face the demands of prevention programs (^{Mangrulkar et al., 2001}) and health promotion. Even more so in developing countries where, as we have mentioned, there is a scarcity of LS programs. Furthermore, programs are often created for short-term results only (^{Nasheeda et al., 2018}).

In this sense, LS programs enhance self-efficacy in youth, preparing them to be competent in a changing, competitive, and global world (^{McMullen & McMullen, 2018}; ^{Srikala & Kishore, 2010}). For LS learning in the educational field, sessions can be held that include role-playing, the debate of dilemmas for the development of self-knowledge, empathy, self-regulation, of behavior, as well as involvement in non-regulated social activities (^{Mangrulkar et al., 2001}). Efficacy increases if they are developed from the individual perspective and their life events since, in this way, the young person does not consider these activities as totally far or abstract issues but integrated into their age and their personal identity. Precisely, deficit detection through this instrument would be very useful amidst the educational activities planning.

Limitations

Regarding the limitations of this research, first, data was collected under the adolescents’ perceptions. This implies a bias that could increase the size of the relationship between the variables analyzed. Second, the HVD-A scale contains a single item to evaluate each LS, which reduces the soundness of the results. However, the tool was preferably proposed to evaluate LS as a general construct, in research that seeks to analyze the relationship with various positive psychology constructs -both individual and contextual-, thus reducing the fatigue bias of the participants.

Further research

Despite the existence of different programs to promote LS in the Spanish-speaking context (e. g., ^{Carrillo-Sierra et al., 2018}; ^{Corrales et al., 2017}), tools that evaluate such LS are needed. At a scientific level, it is both necessary to collect evidence of LS relationships with other positive psychology constructs that involve LS promotion and adaptive competencies (e. g., ^{Lopez et al., 2018}). Besides, in future studies, it would be relevant to contrast the adolescents’ abilities through their parents’ and teachers’ assessments. Likewise, future research using the HVD-A scale is needed to verify its functioning in adolescents from other Spanish-speaking countries, both in program evaluation and in the positive and developmental psychology field.

Conclusion

LS tells how to do things well to be competent in different contexts, but validated instruments to assess LS are needed. Our results reveal that HVD-A is a valid and reliable scale that provides evidence of adolescents’ LS. This research is unique in the Spanish context. An instrument to evaluate LS is relevant to collect reliable data about youths’ perceptions of their cognitive, emotional, and social competencies. For this reason, the HVD-A scale has wide applicability both for the scientific and for the applied field of psycho-pedagogical, psychological, or educational contexts. Being a short instrument, it is easily applicable in all types of education (formal, non-formal, and informal) and, converted into an app, it could obtain reliable and immediate evaluation records.