Hopes and Goals Survey for use in STEM elementary education

This study reports the development and validation studies of the Hopes and Goals Survey, an assessment designed to measure the level of hope of elementary students from diverse backgrounds, and its relation to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) studies and career. Data collected from students attending urban elementary schools were used for exploratory factor analysis (n = 265) and confirmatory factor analysis (n = 193). Results suggest that Hopes and Goals Survey is a five factor model with internal consistency ranging from 0.609 to 0.904. In addition, multivariate analysis of variance results indicate that students from differing racial groups in the same school district report similar levels of Hopes and Goals related to STEM.