SPECTRUM’: Social, Psychological, Emotional, Concepts of self, and Resilience: Understanding and Measurement

There is growing evidence that children’s social and emotional skills – their ability to respond to setbacks, work well with others, build relationships, manage emotions, and cope with difficult situations – are associated with success at school, as well as positive outcomes in adulthood, such as stable employment, physical and mental health, and well-being. However, despite a growing interest in these skills, much less is known about what can be done to develop them.One of the challenges is the current considerable debate about how to define and measure various aspects of social and emotional development

the SPECTRUM project comprises of three parts:

1) A conceptual mapping exercise exploring the current state of the field regarding measurement of a broad constellation of skills and attributes beyond those directly associated with academic aptitude.

2) A guide to selection, use and interpretation of psycho-social measures, including both academic (e.g. psychometric robustness - reliability and validity) and practical (e.g. length and complexity of measures, associated costs) considerations.

3) An online, searchable database that can be used to identify instruments that meet a user’s specified needs (e.g. 'measure of social skills suitable for children aged 8-11, less than 20 minutes to complete, free to use’) from the many hundreds that are available.