Are Self-Reported Measures of Well-Being Reliable and Valid?
The growing recognition of children’s and young people’s (CYP) rights to have a good childhood and good future life chances, coupled with the injunction from the New Sociology of Childhood to consult with CYP as active agents, has resulted in an increasing number of studies on CYP's well-being at national and international levels. However, developing reliable and valid measures of well-being suitable for comparative study is still considered one of the significant challenges for research with CYP from different countries. This paper discusses the limitations and advantages of some measures of well-being using data from a survey in Bangladesh. This study was administered as part of the 3rd Wave of the Children’s Worlds International Survey on Children’s Well-Being (ISCWeB). This paper will focus on the reliability and validity of overall and domain-specific measures (e.g., safety, home, material conditions, relationships with friends, family, and teachers) of well-being.
Methods:
Data for this paper are obtained from over 3000 primary and secondary school children (aged between 8 and 15 years) living in three large cities in Bangladesh. Exploratory factor analysis is carried out to examine the factor structure of the multiple-item measures of overall and domain-specific well-being. Then, Cronbach’s Alpha is computed to examine the reliability of the scales. Finally, convergent, discriminant and criterion validity of the scales are assessed by testing the relations of these scales with other theoretically relevant variables, e.g., age, gender, satisfaction with health, pro-social behaviour, emotional symptom, and self-esteem.
Results and conclusion:
Although some multi-item measures of overall and domain-specific well-being appear to work well in measuring child well-being in Bangladesh, there is still scope for improving the measures. These findings are discussed in the context of previous empirical studies on child well-being in developing and developed countries. Suggestions for future comparative research are put forward.