Future-Time Perspective: Analysis of a Facet-Designed Questionnaire

Future-time perspective for adolescents and young adults is directed towards several objects and may extend into the far or the near future. Differences in this perspective can affect motivational qualities influencing investment in one's future. A future-time perspective questionnaire was developed along these lines using facet design. It contains an object facet with the elements school and professional career, personal development, social relations, and leisure time; and an extension facet in which the elements short-term and long-term were distinguished. This study aims at empirically confirming the facet structure of the questionnaire in a sample of young adults. The questionnaire was administered to the 1993 cohort of psychology students. In total, 517 students under 25 years of age completed the questionnaire. Empirical analysis of the facet design using confirmatory factor analysis required modeling the facet structure in terms of a block diagonal model. The well-known statistical problem of finding adequate starting values for the parameter estimates in the analysis of such models with factor complexity larger than one was resolved. The analysis resulted in the complete recovery of the facet structure. It was concluded, with some reservations, that the results seem to support the validity of the questionnaire.