Appendix B: Examples of many children’s survey questions

Miracles from Children’s Play, Day by Day

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Appendix B

ASSESSING LIFE SATISFACTION and EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

*Thanks to Shannon Suldo, Ph.D, et al, for the power point slides used in part for the following text. The student self- rated questionnaires, below in red, correlate with the rating scales and scoring downloaded under Appendix A.

These three scales in red target both global and domain specific domains of life satisfaction and can be used by the school psychologist for students in elementary and secondary schools: You may use the scoring template and procedures Manual downloaded above in Appendix A.

Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS)

Subscales:

  • Self – 7 items
  • Family – 7 items
  • Friends – 9 items
  • Living environment – 9 items
  • School – 8 items

Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS)

  • Students rate their level of satisfaction with each area of life
  • 1 item for each of the domains of life satisfaction
  • 1 item used as a global indicator
  • Provides a quick comparison of each facet of students’ lives

Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS)

  • Students rate their level of agreement to seven statement on a 6-point likert scale
  • No published norms

Assessment of Self-Efficacy

Information on Self-Efficacy Extensive information from Bandura’s website

Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for children (SEQ-C) Muris, 2001

Assessing Efficacy Forwarding Page, a Resource

Click here to find this instrument with many other ratings for self- worth, social competence, resiliency and others.

Three domains of self-efficacy:

  • Academic
  • Social
  • Emotional
  • Each subscale is 7 items
  • Students indicate their competence level for certain tasks or activities on a 5-point likert scale

Assessment of Gratitude

Gratitude Questionnaire

Dr. Emmons website also accesses the GQ-6 and further helps score the questionnaire. This version includes down to early teen and possibly preteens. He is working another set of questions for younger children.

How to raise a grateful child

Fishful thinking: Cultivating Gratitude in Youth

gratitude website

Gratitude Adjective Checklist (GAC; McCullough et al., 2002)

  • Measures gratefulness, thankfulness, and appreciativeness
  • Disposition/trait (Froh & Yurkewicz, 2007)
  • Grateful mood (Froh, Sefick, & Emmons, 2008)
  • Measures 4 facets of trait gratitude via 6 items
  • Intensity: experience positive events with more intense gratitude.
  • Frequency: experience gratitude more frequently and for small benefits
  • Span: experiencing gratitude for numerous life circumstances
  • Density: expressing gratitude to many people for a specific positive outcome

Assessment of Hope

Children’s Hope Scale (CHS; Snyder et al., 1997) – Hope introduction and scale pdf

  • Six-item scale
  • Pathway thinking:
    • Self-perceptions that one can find ways to reach goals under all circumstances
  • Agency thinking:
    • Motivation to pursue one’s goals

Assessing Strengths

What are Character Strengths?

  • Moral traits based on will and choice
  • Different from talent because they are attainable
  • Different from virtue because they are measurable and acquirable

Strengths are:

  • Characteristics seen across different situations and over time
  • Valued in its own right, requires no justification
  • Valued in most cultures

Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth/Children (VIA-Youth; Park & Peterson)

  • 189 items assessing 24 strengths such as persistence, open-mindedness, and kindness
  • Available at www.authentichappiness.org
  • An attempt for the child to identify their personal strengths (not projected unto them by an adult or society) as well as to apply them to their everyday interests to either build weaker ones or strengthen already strong characteristics.
Psychologist or counselor can login for the child or youth and give a proxy name so the child can complete the questionnaire and obtain the results for the professional to summarize with other assessment material.

Assessing Optimism versus pessimism using the Children’s Attribution Style Questionnaire (CASQ, Seligman)

Well researched assessment of positive and negative explanatory beliefs, expectancy and an internal sense of control. Although, this instrument is available for use, permission was granted for single person use and not web publication. Therefore, the psychologist or counselor can obtain the questionnaire for individual use by emailing Martin Seligman at seligman@cattell.psych.upenn.edu or obtain his book The Optimistic Child, Houghton Mifflin, 1995 (pages 69-75) for the questions. You may also contact us at info@able-differently.org to inquire. Refer to the information optimism intervention, a part of the Positive Psychology Procedures Manual by Suldo and Michalowski– download at the end of headline article. Exploring was to implant the optimism construct within children is powerful and has fairly good evidence if it can be learned, there will be fruits of happiness, contentment, hope and even other health based outcomes.

Attribution Style and Depressive Symptoms Among Children, Seligman et al, 1984

“Learned Helplessness in Children: A Longitudinal Study of Depression, Achievement, and Explanatory Style,” Seligman et al, 1986

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