Program Evaluation Resources

Browse Research Areas


Demographics

Dimension

Measures

Demographics

Age, race/ethnicity, education, income, sex/gender identity, receiving any other mental health or substance use treatment.

For parents: # of children, child(ren’s) age(s), child(ren’s) race/ethnicity, family configuration, # of rooms in house, # of people in house; custody; how much of the time do you have your child; how many people are available to help with childcare


Mental Health

Dimension

Measures

Anxiety Symptoms

7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) scale1, designed to briefly assess probable generalized anxiety disorder, α=.92.

Spitzer, R. L., Kroenke, K., Williams, J. B., & Löwe, B. (2006). A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder: the GAD-7. Archives of Internal Medicine, 166(10), 1092-1097.


Depression Symptoms

9-item Public Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), which measures depressive symptom severity, α=.86-.89. We strongly recommend dropping the item asking about suicide for program evaluations.

Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., & Williams, J. B. (2001). The PHQ-9: Validity of a brief depression severity measure. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 16(9), 606–613. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2001.016009606.x


Well-Being

Dimension

Measures

Resilience

6-item Brief Resilience Scale assess an ability to cope with and recover from stressful situations6, α=.91

Smith, B. W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Christopher, P., & Bernard, J. (2008). The brief resilience scale: Assessing the ability to bounce back. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15(3), 194–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705500802222972

Flourishing

8-item Flourishing Scale assesses respondents’ sense that they lead a purposeful life and are engaged in daily activities. α=.89

Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). New well-being measures: Short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 97(2), 143–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9493-y

Happiness

Subjective Happiness Scale is a 4-item measure assessing trait happiness. α=.79-.94

Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. S. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46(2), 137–155. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006824100041


Stress

Dimension

Measures

Negative Life Events

General Life Events and Stressfulness (GLES)includes 19 moderately to highly stressful events rated as whether they occurred and how stressful they were.

Sandler, I. N., Ramirez, R., & Reynolds, K. D. (1986). Life stress for children of divorce, bereaved and asthmatic children. General Life Events Schedule for Children. Poster Presented at the American Psychological Association Convention, Washington, DC.

Perceived Stress

4-item Perceived Stress Scale; Common definitions of stress emphasize both the perception of an event being stressful (e.g. challenges to physical or emotional wellbeing or a state of high environmental demands) and an appraisal that the event is difficult to cope with (Aldwin, 2007; Gunnar & Quevedo, 2007). One of the most widely used measures of stress, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983), measures both these states of perceived stress and their appraisals of their ability to cope with stress.

Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 385-396.



Adversity

Dimension

Measures

ACEs

A 14-item Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire (ACE) that documents the presence of adverse events occurring to an individual during their first 18 years of life 4a-b, α=.77. The ACE-IQ adds questions about experiences and exposure to violence relevant to international communities.

Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245-258.

Mersky, J. P., Janczewski, C. E., & Topitzes, J. (2017). Rethinking the measurement of adversity: Moving toward second-generation research on adverse childhood experiences. Child Maltreatment, 22(1), 58-68.

Discrimination

The Everyday Discrimination Scale, a 9-item scale of experiences of negative attitude, judgment, or unfair treatment towards members of one’s race, α=.88.

Kim, G., Sellbom, M., & Ford, K. L. (2014). Race/ethnicity and measurement equivalence of the Everyday Discrimination Scale. Psychological Assessment, 26(3), 892.


Self/Emotion Regulation

Dimension

Measures

Coping

COPE – Short Form is a 24-item multidimensional coping inventory to assess the different ways in which people respond to stress, α=.68-.71

Carver, C. S., Schneier, M. F., & Weintraub, J. K. (1989). Assessing coping strategies: A theoretically based approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56(2), 267–283. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.56.2.267

Emotion Regulation

16-item Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale8 represents deficits in awareness, understanding, acceptance of emotions, impulse control, and access to emotion regulation strategies, α=.79.

Gratz, K. L., & Roemer, L. (2004). Multidimensional assessment of emotion regulation and dysregulation: Development, factor structure, and initial validation of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral assessment, 26(1), 41-54.

Victor, S. E., & Klonsky, E. D. (2016). Validation of a brief version of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-18) in five samples. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 38(4), 582–589. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-016-9547-9

Adult Executive Control

5-item attention and 7-item inhibitory control subscales of the Adult Temperament Questionnaire – Short Form (Evans & Rothbart, 2007). α=.76

Evans, D. E., & Rothbart, M. K. (2007). Developing a model for adult temperament. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(4), 868–888. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2006.11.002


Mindfulness and Self-Compassion

Dimension

Measures

Mindful Self- Compassion

The Self-Compassion Scale Short Form,9 a 12-item measure of mindfulness, self-kindness and sense of common humanity, α=.86.

Raes, F., Pommier, E., Neff, K. D., & Van Gucht, D. (2011). Construction and factorial validation of a short form of the Self‐Compassion Scale. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 18(3), 250–255. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.702

Mindfulness

15-item Mindful Attention Awareness Scale measures present attention or lack of awareness15. α = .87

Brown KW, Goodman RJ, Inzlicht M. Dispositional mindfulness and the attenuation of neural responses to emotional stimuli. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2013; 8: 93-99.


Social Connection

Dimension

Measures

Positive relations with others

14-item Positive Relations with Others subscale of the Psychological Well-being measure13. α= .82

Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(6), 1069–1081. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.6.1069


Parenting & Parent Competence

Dimension

Measures

Warmth and Consistency

VERY SHORT FORM – Child Report of Parenting Behavior Inventory (CRPBI: Schaefer, 1965; Teleki, Powell, & Doddler, 1982) which assesses acceptance (α = .89), rejection (α = .83), consistent limit setting (α = .83) and support for autonomy (α = .71).

Parent-Child Relationship

15-item Parent-child Relationship Scale Short Form (PCRS-SF) measures parent-child closeness and conflict.

Driscoll, K., & Pianta, R. C. (2011). Mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of conflict and closeness in parent-child relationships during early childhood. Journal of Early Childhood and Infant Psychology, (7), 1-24.

Parent Sense of Competence

Parenting Sense of Competence Scale- Measures parents’ sense of their own competence using two broad scales: efficacy (parent’s perceived competence in the parenting role) and satisfaction (parent’s liking of the parenting role).

Parental Self-efficacy

5-item Brief Parental Self-efficacy Scale assesses parents’ sense they are able to address their children’s needs and behaviors effectively.

Mindful Parenting

The Mindful Parenting in Infancy Scale,11 a 10-item measure of present-centered attention and emotional awareness during parenting interactions, α=.88.

Gartstein, M. A. (2021). Development and validation of the Mindful Parenting in Infancy Scale (MPIS). Infancy, 26(5), 705-723.


Family

Dimension

Measures

Conflict and Cohesion

Family functioning scale assesses several aspects of family functioning including conflict and cohesion

Bloom, B. L. (1985). A factor analysis of self-report measures of family functioning. Family Process, 24, 225-239.

Stark KD, Humphrey LL, Crook K, Lewis K (1990), Perceived family environments of depressed and anxious children: child’s and maternal figure’s perspectives. J Abnorm Child Psychol 18:527-547


Child Well-Being

Dimension

Measures

Child Adjustment

Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire

This website includes information about this measure as well as numerous translations


Workplace Well-Being

Dimension

Measures

Work/advising Self-efficacy

Adapted from the Teacher Efficacy – Short Form (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001), this measures staff/advisor sense of efficacy in their work with clients.

Tschannen-Moran, M., & Hoy, A. (2001). Teacher Efficacy: Capturing an Elusive Construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 783–805. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-051X(01)00036-1

Work-related Stress and Burnout

30-item Professional Quality of Life Measure (ProQOL) assesses burnout as well as compassion fatigue and stress.

Stamm, B. H. (2010). The Concise ProQOL Manual, 2nd Ed. (p. 74). www.ProQOL.org

Workplace Climate

Select items from the NIOSH Worker Well-being Questionnaire

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2021-110/default.html

Research Featured
Website
June 2024