Psychological capital is the term psychologists use for a positive state of mind that helps a person cope with difficulties, stay optimistic, and look to the future with confidence, and a team in Kazakhstan has now produced a tool to measure it in the Kazakh language.
Psychological capital is usually described as a mix of self-efficacy, hope, resilience, and optimism. The authors note that developing psychological capital can improve mental health and well-being, but researchers need reliable questionnaires in the right language and culture before they can track them.
The study, published in The Open Psychology Journal, was led by Aigerim Mynbayeva with colleagues at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty. The team translated and adapted the widely used 24-item Psychological Capital Questionnaire, first developed by Luthans, Youssef, and Avolio in 2007.
The work followed international standards for adapting psychological tests. It involved independent translations, expert review, and pilot testing before the final version was tried on a larger group of students.
In total, 656 young people aged 16–27 took part, with an average age of 18.5. Of these, 570 were women and 86 were men, and the Kazakh version was first piloted with 30 people. The researchers split the sample, using 456 responses to explore the structure of the questionnaire and 200 to confirm it.
The original questionnaire has four parts, but the Kazakh data pointed to three. The final version measures self-efficacy, resilience, and hope, and all three scales showed high internal consistency, with reliability scores of around 0.89–0.91.
The missing piece was optimism. In the Kazakh sample, optimism items did not stand apart but instead merged with resilience and hope, which the authors say is in line with earlier findings from Asian, Middle Eastern, and post-Soviet samples, where optimism often behaves differently from Western studies.
The researchers also looked at how the students scored. Just over half (51.75%) showed an average level of self-efficacy and 25.75% scored low, while 26% scored low on resilience. On hope, by contrast, 88.25% scored high.
Reverse-coded items presented particular challenges and may need further refinement, the authors note, but the overall results support using the instrument in the Kazakhstani context.
The authors say the adapted questionnaire can now be used in research, in psychological assessment, and in educational programmes in Kazakhstan.
As with any validation study, there are limits. The sample was heavily weighted towards women, and the authors say future research needs to test whether the questionnaire works equally well for men. Participants were also recruited through convenience sampling, mainly via WhatsApp and Instagram.
For now, Kazakh-speaking researchers have a tested instrument for measuring self-efficacy, resilience, and hope in the language many students use every day.
