Section: Work and Equal Opportunities

The Jump@School questionnaire on “soft facts” was developed from a review of the relevant literature as described in the chapter on the “main reasons and causes of early school leaving” in the report on evaluation design and data collection instruments. A key word search of the following terms was also done: Terms including engagement, self-regulation, behavioural-, affective-, cognitive-, emotional-, psychological-, affective engagement, self-confidence, belonging, school identification, valuing school. Further, a study conducted by Fredericks et al. (2011), which reviews 21 measures of student engagement, was analysed in great detail. Of those instruments, which are available free of charge as well as based on the comprehensive literature review, questions that appeared to be most promising in terms of their scientific quality as well as their content regarding the Jump@School intervention were selected. To theme the questionnaire as the Jump@School intervention and to keep the instrument at a reasonable length, the original questionnaire scales were not used in their entirety, which clearly bears the risk of reducing their validity.

The survey items came from the following data sources:

• Appleton et al. (2006)
• Davis et al. (2002)
• Freeney/O’Connell (2009)
• Fredricks et al. (2002)
• Chicago School consortium (2007)
• Skinner et al. (2012)
• High School Survey of Student Engagement
• Fredricks et al. (2011)

Although these are the primary sources, many of the questions chosen from them were modified in wording. These changes were made in order to make the survey instrument ‘easy to read’ for at-risk students and consistent in terms of response scale. Further, more unique questions that seemed pertinent to the Jump@School project and its specific intervention were added.

After identifying the items it was felt that it would be most useful if each one was examined for fit into the following dimensions, which the Jump@School intervention would target: school motivation & valuing learning in school, engagement with learning, self-confidence with learning, commitment to complete and education, anxiety and uncertain control, self-regulation as well as control and withdrawal.

Altogether, the multidimensional measure includes 37 items in a questionnaire format that can be administered to students during a single class period. The items reflect attitudes, feelings or beliefs. In order to prevent students from inattentive or acquiescent answering reverse wording of questionnaire items was used.

This short report shows the results of the cognitive pretesting of the Jump@School self-assessment of students (through the soft questionnaire) and the corresponding change.

Authors: Tschank, J.

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• Project: Jump@School