Measuring subjective well-being in children and young people_Gwyther Rees.pdf
- 1. Asking younger children about their well-being Gwyther Rees UNICEF Innocenti Global Office of Research and Foresight
- 2. Self-reported well-being Self-reported well-being Subjective well-being Psychological well-being Cognitive Affective Life satisfaction Satisfaction with different aspects of life Positive emotions Negative emotions For example (Ryff, 1989): Self-acceptance Environmental mastery Autonomy Positive relations Purpose in life Personal growth
- 3. Affect Activated Deactivated Pleasant Unpleasant Russell, J.A. (1980) A Circumplex Model of Affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1161-1178. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0077714 Sad Happy Bored Calm Stressed Full of energy
- 4. Affect
- 5. Life satisfaction and domain satisfactions Single item for life satisfaction Same approach for various domain satisfactions (family, friends, health ..) 0 to 10 for 10-year-olds, 5-point emoticon scale for 8-year-olds Multi-item life satisfaction, based on Huebners SLSS*: I enjoy my life My life is going well I have a good life The things that happen in my life are excellent I like my life I am happy with my life 0 to 10 agreement for 10-year-olds, 5-point emoticon scale for 8-year-olds * Huebner, E. S. (1991). Initial Development of the Students Life Satisfaction Scale. School Psychology International, 12(3), 231240. http://doi.org/10.1177/0143034391123010
- 7. Life satisfaction: Children and adults Child data at 15 years old from PISA 2018. Adult data from Gallup World Survey 2017 to 2019
- 8. Psychological well-being Six items based on concepts from Ryff (1989) I like being the way I am I am good at managing my daily responsibilities People are generally friendly towards me I have enough choice about how I spend my time I feel that I am learning a lot at the moment I feel positive about my future Agreement scale Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(6), 1069.
- 9. A different approach Home School Community Love / care There are people in my family who care about me My teachers care about me Adults in my local area are kind to children Support If I have a problem, people in my family will help me If I have a problem at school my teachers will help me If I have a problem there are people in my local area who will help me Safety I feel safe at home I feel safe at school I feel safe when I walk around in the area I live in Respect My parent(s) listen to me and take what I say into account My teachers listen to me and take what I say into account Adults in my area listen to children and take them seriously Participation My parents and I make decisions about my life together At school I have opportunities to make decisions about things that are important to me In my local area, I have opportunities to participate in decisions about things that are important to children
- 10. Summary Cognitive testing and psychometric analysis supports asking well-being questions of children from 8 years old Response options are a key issue Challenges in translation, particularly emotions Partial measurement invariance Difficult to explain cross-country variations Policy relevance may be primarily within rather than between countries Are whole life assessments the most effective way of asking people about their well-being?