SoC and young children SOC Research and Measurement Discuss SoC and young children in the forums; Hi, I'm currently adapting the SCI-2 for use with school children in the UK, from ages 11 years to 16 years and have trialled it with 700 pupils in a ...

[edepftps]

Hi, I'm currently adapting the SCI-2 for use with school children in the UK, from ages 11 years to 16 years and have trialled it with 700 pupils in a school. Quite apart from anyone else who has been adapting the scale for use with adolescents, I'd like to hear from anyone who has considered SoC measures with children from say 5 years old to 11 years old. Best wishes,
Phil

[dchavis]

Hi Phil,

I do not know anyone who has used either instrument with children under 12. There are a couple of other people who are using or wanting to use one of the instruments with youth in their teens.

Do you think a questionnaire of this type would work with young children? Are there other ways or other ways to phrase questions. What do others think?

David

[Deborah]

Hi Dr. Chavis,

We are interested in assessing SOC in 3 inner-city schools in San Diego, elementary, middle and high, kids from 5-18 years. The schools are mostly Hispanic and African American with a small mix of other Asian/PI and African ethnic groups.

We’ve been looking at the SOC with 12 items and the SOC with 24 items (Likert and more ethnically appropriate). We will have lots of younger kids, particularly elementary school age, who most likely won’t understand some of the concepts in the SOC Index II questions, e.g. #’s 2, 3, 6,10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23. Also we’re thinking, as you suggest in the SOC 12 items, that you can change the word [block] to whatever is appropriate – we would like that word to be [school]. Have you used that in any studies or do you know of any that have used [school] as the community of reference?

What we’re wondering is, have you worked on a new version of the SOC for elementary and middle school kids? If not, would you be willing to help us make it appropriate? You are the expert and your suggestions would be vary valuable.

We look forward to hearing from you, thanks much,

Deborah Morton, PhD MA
Division of Epidemiology
School of Medicine
UC San Diego

[dchavis]

Hi Deborah,

We had once developed (revised the original) and used the SCI for children and piloted and used it in an evaluation. Never published in a journal, but did include in the report. The reliability was adequate. I will try to upload it to the library and let you know. I can provide the section of the evaluation report that reports the findings of the development of the SCI for youth and the reliability and validation. We used it with a similar population.

I agree that the SCI-2 is a better instrument (it is technically not a likert scale but a version of self anchoring scale) and I do not know of anyone who has adapted it yet as you suggest. It was written and tested with a diverse group of adults, but adaptation makes sense.

I would be glad to help in that process. Maybe Phil, who started this thread, would be interested in working on this too. We can set up a forum or group to work together on this. There may be others interested.

David

[dchavis]

I posted the instrument in the SOC Library. I will try to find the results.

David

[edepftps]

Sorry to have been away (from the list) and not contributed to this.

First of all - I'd be happy to send (or post in the Library, if I can) the version of SCI-2 that we have developed for use with children 11 years plus, if that would help Deborah. We changed all of the language of the SCI-2 to make it relevant to school via two focus group meetings of school students (aged 12 years to 16 years) and a pilot with a whole tutor group - mainly to get the instructions right and as another check on the wording). We have a technical summary of what happened when about one third of the school (it wasn't as many as 700 in the end - it was 537 out of 1542 pupils) completed it. I can send/post this in the library if someone (David?) tells me how to. Maria (see below) completed the analysis and wrote the report.

I have made contact with another psychologist (Colin), who works close by, who has developed a 'belongingness' scale (not based on the SCI) for use with children aged 9 years-10 years. He would be willing to share this, if it's of interest, although it's rather long (35 items) and doesn't attempt to measure all four of the SoC dimensions.

In the interests of securing some research time from trainee educational psychologists (it's a UK thing) at Southampton University, I'm meeting with their research tutor (who is a developmental psychologist), Colin (from the above paragraph) and Maria (who has been working with me in developing the SCI-2 - and I'm encouraging her to join this forum) to discuss developing a SCI for younger children (from 5 years of age). There are already two schools who want to work with us on this. Clearly one of the key issues is going to be translate the four dimensions into statements that children of that age can make sense of and a response format. I would welcome forming a community around this work: sharing experience, knowledge, happiness and struggle.

There is an added emphasis because schools in England are now being judged on their ability to promote community cohesion. The county (Hampshire - look it up on a map) in which I work has just published some guidance to its schools, which, you will be interested to hear, David, cites your work. Two schools have already ben criticised by inspectors because they cannot evidence in any way what they understand about the cohesion of their schools. I have argued that SoC and the SCI-2 helps to provide that evidence.

The other aspect is: having completed the Index, what happens then? We are planning to set up a participatory action research process (with children and teachers) to identify a programme of action, based on the SCI-2 results, to improve sense of community. Has anyone done anything similar with school students?

Will this do for now?

Best wishes to all,
Phil