Measuring Child Well-

being Across Cultures

Paul Stephenson, Senior Director,

Child Development and Rights

ISCI Conference York 2011, UK

1

Session Overview

• World Vision’s goal and targets

for child well-being

• Why positive youth

development and assets?

• How can we measure children’s

well-being?

• DAP use outside the USA

• Future directions

2

World Vision’s Ministry Goal

• The sustained well-being of children, within their families and communities, especially the most vulnerable.

Child Well-being Aspirations & Outcomes

Experience love of God and neighbour

Targets

Session Overview

• Why positive youth

development and

why assets?

6

7

The 40 Development Assets

Examples of Assets

Family support

Other adult relationships

Service to others

Responsibility

Positive peer influence

Planning & decision making

Sense of purpose

• Powerful impact on lives• Grounded in extensive

research• Measurable• Practical and actionable• Empowering• Politically, ideologically

inclusive• Flexible and adaptable• Credible among

gatekeepers

External Internal

Support Commitment to Learning

Empowerment Positive Values

Boundaries & Expectations Social Competencies

Constructive Use of Time Positive Identity

Categories of Developmental Assets

Why assets matter

Reduced Risks

Increased Thriving

Resilience

40

Developmental

Assets

The more

assets,

the better

U. S.: Trueacross . . .

• Socioeconomic status

• Race/ethnicity

• Family composition

• Gender

10

Increased Thriving (U.S. Data)

27%

9%

48%

19%

69%

34%

88%

54%

Maintains Good Health Succeeds in School

0 - 10 Assets

11 - 20 Assets

21 - 30 Assets

31 - 40 Assets

62%

45%

38%

26%

18%

11%6%

3%

Violence Problem Alcohol Use

0 - 10 Assets

11 - 20 Assets

21 - 30 Assets

31 - 40 Assets

Reduced Risks (U. S. Data)

Why assets matter

11

Key Asset-Building Messages

• All young people need assets

• Everyone can build assets

• Relationships are key

• Little things add up

• Asset building is an ongoing process

Session Overview

• How can we

measure children’s

well-being?

• The Developmental

Assets Profile (DAP)

12

The Developmental Assets Profile

• Short measure of Developmental Assets Framework• Developed in 2004

13

– 58 item survey – likert scale– Children ages 12 to 18 (6th grade reading level)– Quantitative measure

• Tracks change over time• Individually or random sample• Can be linked to other measures or data points

Qualitative approaches• Focus groups

• Holistic view of thriving• Children’s perspectives• Quantitatively rigorous• User-friendly & empowering• Multi-use (mobilising, programming, monitoring,

coaching)• Correlates with other measures• Cross-cultural relevance• Multi-country applicability and analysis• Sector recognised toolkit

What are the strengths of the DAP?

Session Overview

• How does the DAP

connect with WV’s

Child well-being

outcomes (CWBO)?

15

Internal assetsExternal assetsInternal and external assets

DAP and CWBOs

Session Overview

• DAP use outside the

USA

17

Exploring Assets Globally

International Groups

• Aga Khan Development Network

• Educational Development Center

• Oasis Global

• Save the Children

• World Vision International

• U. S. Peace Corps

• YMCA International

Countries (DAP data)

Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan,

Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil,

China, Colombia, Dominican

Republic, Egypt, Gaza, Iraq,

Japan, Jordan, Lebanon,

Mexico, Morocco, Nepal,

Philippines, Yemen

Albania (2009)World Vision Int’lAlbanian

259 youth

Japan (2008)Yamaguchi Univ.Japanese

13,500 youth

Bangladesh (2006-10)Save the ChildrenBengali

498 youth

Philippines (2006-09)EDCTagalog

703 youth

Lebanon (2008)American Univ. BeirutArabic

1,138 youth

Design

Review andrevise items

Translate andback-translate

Face Validity(Is it culturally meaningful?)

Input from experts

Input from youth, parents, teachers,

elders, etc.

Developing a Useful Measurement Tool

U.S. DAP

(English)

Utilization

Training for utilizationBaseline / norm sample

EvaluationProgram improvement

Research

Testing(Reliability & Validity)

Pretest/Review

Pilot test

Analyze/revise

Field test

Scale Reliabilities: Categories

United States

Japan Albania Lebanon

Bangladesh Philippines

T1 T2 T1 T2

Support .80 .85 .70 .70 .65 .61 .57 .69

Empowerment .74 .70 .51 .51 .48 .48 .51 .69

Boundaries & Expectations .84 .81 .72 .71 .73 .72 .71 .76

Constructive Use of Time .56 .44 .36 .49 .18 .36 .43 .64

Commitment to Learning .83 .77 .63 .72 .77 .73 .55 .69

Positive Values .69

.80

.65 .70 .68 .70 .60 .76

Social Competencies .79 .76 .57 .55 .62 .62 .64 .75

Positive Identity .79 .77 .60 .67 .64 .51 .51 .70.60 Promising .60 Acceptable .80 Good .90 Excellent

Stability Reliability (Test-Retest)

• U.S.: All test-retest coefficients were

acceptable (.60 or higher)

• Albania (n = 51): 8 of 15 tests showed

acceptable stability

• Bangladesh (n=119): 0 of 16 showed

acceptable stability

• Philippines (n = 164): 3 of 8 tests showed

acceptable stability

Refinement

needed

before

using

longitudinally

Overall DAP Scores

United States

Japan Albania Lebanon

Bangladesh Philippines

T1 T2 T1 T2

Excellent 15% 15% 3% 5% 1% 8% 3% 14%

Good 34% 50% 48% 37% 10% 55% 20% 31%

Fair 38% 33% 44% 47% 58% 35% 61% 46%

Poor 14% 2% 5% 11% 31% 3% 16% 8%

(Samples are not representative of the countries)

Potential for measuring program impact

Final Thoughts: Utility of the DAP

• Appears to be useful in many contexts and cultures

AND• There’s still work to do

– Promising levels of internal reliability on most measures

– Stability reliability less consistent across countries

– Most items are translatable

– See both expected consistency and variability

– Large pre-post changes

Final Thoughts: Future Directions

• Linking independent efforts– Cost sharing and mutual learning

– Strategic priority setting within regions

– Increased impact in the global policy/program discussion

• Testing content validity– Link to sectoral outcomes, behavioral measures, etc.

– Larger, more representative, more diverse samples

• Addressing the areas with less reliability– E.g., constructive use of time, empowerment

• Measurement of different age groups

• Moving from research to practice (and policy)

Thanks!

26

Paul Stephenson

Email: paul_stephenson@wvi.orgPhone: +1 626 226 7435

Gene RoehlkepartainSearch Institute

Email: gener@search-institute.orgPhone: + 1 (612) 399-0216

Web: www.search-institute.org