Initial psychometric evaluation and cross-cultural generalization of the Resilience Evaluation Scale (RES) in college students

The Resilience Evaluation Scale (RES) is a newly developed measure of resilience written in both English and Dutch languages. To date, there have not been comprehensive psychometric evaluations of the RES’ performance, including validity for use in non-Western cultural populations and languages. In our attempt to address this void, we conducted a psychometric evaluation of the RES utilizing a Western, sample of U.S. college students and non-Western sample of Chinese college students. Our psychometric evaluation of the RES in a Western, English-speaking sample of U.S. college students indicated mixed results on the construct validity of the RES for measuring resilience. We also found that the factor structure of the RES lacked configural invariance across U.S. college student and Chinese college student samples. Results suggested that additional research is needed to assess whether the RES appropriately measures internal factors of resilience or requires modification. We also highlight the need for continued development of cross-culturally valid measures, and possibly different conceptualizations, of resilience across cultural and linguistic groups.