Vision of Personal Future as a Tool for Supporting Adolescents' Transition to Adulthood

Abstract

This article reports on the Vision of personal future scale (vpf), an instrument aimed to assess cognitive clearness, conviction in realization, and the self-directedness of adolescents’ envisioning of their personal future. The 13-item scale was applied on 1,969 Serbian adolescents with the aim of exploring general aspects of their anticipations of their personal future. Results show that adolescents highlight the motivational and guiding potential of their own vision of the future. Two factor structures were extracted (namedmotivational optimistic and cognitive fearful), but each factor was emphasized differently by adolescents. The usefulness of the scale was discussed in the context of youth work and the creation of specific programs aimed to support youth development.