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Collaborating with psychologists, sociologists, educators and built environment experts to develop and pilot ways of measuring young children's wellbeing.

The project aimed to test measures for a physically active play intervention in East London. A recent review of whole-school interventions showed that studies use standardised measures of well-being to track change over weeks, months, or years. However, the short-term factors driving overall changes are not well understood. The project team included psychologists, sociologists, educators, and built environment experts to develop and test ways of measuring young children’s well-being in the short term and from children’s perspectives, complementing global well-being and mental health measures.

The team created a tool to capture the short-term effects of the play intervention. The tool focused on aspects of well-being important to children, allowing children to self-report, and could be used in large-scale trials. Based on evidence and expert consultations, the team identified 6 key well-being domains: emotional and psychological well-being, physical well-being, social well-being, environmental participation, agency, and safety. To assess these domains, 12 statements were developed for children to respond to. For example, to measure emotional well-being, children would rate their feelings of happiness, sadness, excitement, anger, or calm after a play session.

The sample of children, teachers, and teaching assistants provided feedback on the tool with practical suggestions for improvement. The tool will undergo further testing to use it alongside other well-being measures.

The findings were written in a blog on the Institute of Education’s website.