On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you right now?
Regular, in-the-moment feedback, such pinging a text with the question above, is a method increasingly used in the substantial body of research behind the measurement of wellbeing. In the moment feedback has proved to be remarkably useful in reducing overthink in those being surveyed.
In addition to the snapshot approach, there are validated questionnaires and scales measuring different aspects of wellbeing, including life satisfaction, mental wellbeing, sense of belonging, school connectedness and psychological functioning. The OECD, for example, includes measures of student wellbeing in PISA, including life satisfaction and belonging.
There’s an old adage, “What gets measured gets managed”. But after over a decade of producing data, I have seen that, when allowed to, people tend to cherry-pick measurements that support the perspective they already have. And the data often fails to stimulate the changes needed.
PISA provides a good example. The headline results tend to focus on reading, mathematics and science, while the wider range of information collected about students, such as wellbeing, and their experiences receives rather less attention. In the case of PISA, everyone concentrates on the three Rs – reading, writing and ‘rithmetic – even though the picture of education is considerably broader.
Nevertheless, collecting data is still useful because it helps provide a voice. We can use evidence collection to have better conversations and, then in turn, make better decisions.
Regularly collecting wellbeing data from students and staff creates a forum. They do not need to complain, struggle to express their concerns constructively in public, or worse, suffer in silence. Instead, they are invited to share their views, often from the safety of anonymity.
A well-designed survey can tell us things that individual conversations may not. Not because the data is necessarily more truthful than what one individual tells a another, but because patterns can become visible across a whole year group, department or school.
If a significant number of students or teachers report that they do not feel that they belong, that is worth discussing.
If students' sense of belonging improves following changes to induction, pastoral systems or the way tutor time is used, that is worth knowing.
If staff wellbeing is declining in one part of the school, again, time to talk.
The point isn't to produce a dashboard that that someone has is using to advance their own agenda. It is to create a culture of communication in which the data helps stimulate conversations.
Regular measurement can therefore help schools keep sight of what their focus should be, indicate where attention is needed, and help establish whether something has actually changed.
And that is a different, possibly more useful, way of thinking about measurement. Not as a way of reducing something as complex as wellbeing – or learning, in the case of PISA – to a score.
But as another way of listening.
Sources
OECD, PISA 2022 Results (Volume II): Learning During – and From – Disruption — including measures of students’ life satisfaction, sense of belonging and other aspects of wellbeing. OECD report
World Health Organization, WHO-5 Well-Being Index — a five-item self-report measure of mental wellbeing, developed and used internationally. WHO-5 Well-Being Index
Tennant et al. (2007), The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): development and UK validation — the original validation study for WEMWBS. WEMWBS validation study
Warwick Medical School, About WEMWBS — information on the 14-item and 7-item scales and their use in settings including schools and workplaces. WEMWBS – Warwick Medical School
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