Escala de orientação profissional com sentido : adaptação e evidências de validade e de precisão

Abstract

Psychological studies on the meaning in life gained strength with the development of Logotherapy and have demonstrated the importance of this construct for aspects of health, wellbeing and quality of life, among others. In the field of Vocational and Career Guidance, a construct that stands out are the professional interests, whose evaluation has strong relevance for the processes of construction of occupational choices. Based on articulations between these two areas of study, the present research intends to contribute to the availability, in the Brazilian context, of an instrument that assesses professional interests in close association with the meaning of life. Therefore, this study aimed to adapt and gather evidence of validity and reliability for the use of the Escala de Orientación Vocacional con Sentido® in Brazil. The research was carried out in two phases: in the first one, translation, evaluation by specialists, evaluation by target audience, and back-translation of the instrument were carried out; in the second one, the adapted scale was answered by 141 students from two schools in the city of Cuiabá/MT, along with the Avaliação de Interesses Profissionais (AIP) test and a socioeconomic questionnaire. In the first phase, the Content Validity Coefficient was analyzed in relation to the experts' assessment of the criteria for language clarity, practical relevance and theoretical relevance of the scale items. In the second phase, four exploratory factor analyzes were performed, one for each component of meaning of life (emotion, cognition, coherence and identity); Kendall's Tau-b correlation indices between the factors of the adapted instrument and the fields of professional interest of the AIP were also verified. These data analyzes were performed in Excel, Factor Analysis and SPSS programs, respectively. The total content validity coefficient for each of the criteria and for the instrument were considered acceptable. Factor analysis suggested a structure composed of six different factors, but some items did not present satisfactory factor loading. In certain components of the meaning of life, some factors did not show acceptable composite reliability, but all of them were identified as stable for possible replication in future studies. Consistently and repeatedly, the factors of the adapted instrument showed moderate or strong correlation indices with fields of professional interest in the AIP. In general, and despite the limitations of the study sample, the objectives were achieved and it was possible to make recommendations for further studies about the scale.