Developing a Social Evolutionary Measure of Child and Adolescent Hedonic and Eudaimonic Wellbeing in Rural Sierra Leone

Abstract

The study establishes the validity of a new measure of child and adolescent hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing designed for international use and based on social evolutionary theory. The measure advances the fields of psychometrics and happiness studies by providing the first a-contextual assessment of both hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing that is suitable for use with children and adolescents. The Child and Adolescent Personal and Social Assessment of Wellbeing contains a brief measure (8-items) of children’s global hedonia and eudaimonia, and domain specific measures (8-items each) of children’s wellbeing in relation to peers, teachers, and families. To develop the measure, we conducted a mixed methods investigation in rural Sierra Leone. We researched the ecological validity of the conceptual framework in a qualitative study of 40 participants (19 children and 21 adults) living in two communities. We developed the quantitative items through a two-phase pilot study of 200 children living in ten communities. We examined the psychometric properties of the measure in the pilot study data, and in a larger dataset generated with 2324 children living in 95 communities. The qualitative results showed that the participants experienced the framework components (e.g., social acceptance) in their daily lives, and that each component was intertwined with indigenous perspectives on child wellbeing. The quantitative results demonstrated that the measure had good dimensional, concurrent, and predictive validity.

Assessing experiences with violence and peace in primary schools in Sierra Leone

“…The survey contains multiple questions designed to assess children’s personal and social well-being with peers and teachers (Symonds et al , 2021). To operationalise the well-being pillar, we have selected an indicator of eudaimonia that translates more adequately the Cremin and Bevington’s (2017) conception of well-being as harmony and inner peace.…”

“…In addition, a eudaimonic perspective of well-being, living a life of virtue aiming for excellence, is closely related to the idea of the “good” child and collectivist habitus valued by communities in Tonkolili (Devine et al , 2020). The well-being indicator selected for this well-being pillar is based on an arithmetic mean of the responses to the personal well-being scale and scale of well-being with teachers (Symonds et al , 2021).…”

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children's Learning and Wellbeing: Evidence from India

“…In 2019 and 2022, we administered to all students a psychological wellbeing module based on the Child and Adolescent Social and Personal Assessment of Wellbeing (CAPSAW). The CAPSAW is a recently developed tool designed for children 4 to 18 years old, which has already been tested and validated across different contexts (Symonds et al, 2022). The original tool comprises four separate domains, each covered by eight questions, which are then combined in an index through principal component analysis.…”

How School-Based Wellbeing Interventions, Socioeconomic Status, and Gender Impact Anxiety Development in Middle Childhood

“…Wellbeing can be defined as experiencing a positive emotional state [e.g., happiness], and personal accomplishment and fulfilment. Maintaining personal wellbeing can be challenging when environments offer more risk than opportunity and when children are ill prepared to cope with stressors that undermine their ability to maintain happiness [32]. Wellbeing interventions [a term commonly used in Europe] are also known as social and emotional learning [SEL] interventions [a term commonly used in the United States].…”