Validation of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Dellas identity status inventory

Occupational identity provides a sense of direction and meaning and helps to establish a
framework to define occupational goals. One of most prominent frameworks for the
study of occupational identity is Marcia’s identity status paradigm. The Dellas Identity
Status Inventory was developed to assess occupational identity statuses according to
Marcia’s framework. The aim of this study was to adapt and validate the Portuguese
version of this inventory to the Brazilian population, using a sample of 358 college
students of both sexes (72.9% woman), aged 18 to 41 years old (M=23.86, SD=4.57),
attending a public university in the southern part of the country. The intercorrelations
among the inventory subscales and its reliability (Cronbach alpha) and construct validity
(principal factor analysis) were analyzed. Additionally, the inventory’s external validity
was analyzed, taking into consideration the gender and age of the participants. We used
the Kruskal-Wallis Test, Chi-Squares, and T-Tests in the external validity analysis.
Results supported a clear interpretable four-factor solution (diffusion, achievement,
foreclosure, and moratorium) and satisfactory reliability coefficients of the inventory
subscales, from .79 to .89. Results for external validity indicate gender statically
significant differences for Moratorium identity status, favoring male. Overall, the results
of this study suggest that the Brazilian Portuguese Version of the Dellas Identity Status
Inventory can constitute a useful measure to the study of vocational identity in the
Brazilian population. Limitations and suggestion for further research are discussed.
This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2013), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653).
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion