Abstract
The concept of resilience, like all psychological constructs, must have certain characteristics in order to be subjected to experimental testing so as to be effectively applied to benefit our constituency. A primary characteristic is that resilience must be operationally defined in a way that is reliable across time, participants, and researchers. Once a concept is operationalized in a reliable manner, then its validity can be examined. When we have sufficiently operationalized the concept of resilience, and there is evidence that it can be measured in a reliable and valid way, then application in clinical and educational settings becomes possible. This is an ideal sequence for the development of tools for testing new concepts, but it is not how many concepts and tests used in education and psychology have been promulgated. The purpose of this chapter is to first discuss issues related to the measurement of resilience in children. This is followed by a review of the test development process, including a discussion of the importance of reliability and validity. Finally, a list of tests currently available is provided to aide researchers, practitioners, and educators in the measurement and promotion of resilience.
Author Note
We write this chapter in order to provide essential information about measurement of resilience and the tools that are currently available for that purpose. It is important for the reader to recognize that the authors of this chapter are authors of several of the scales included here. In order to provide as complete a view as possible of all the scales currently available for measuring protective factors, we also included scales developed by other authors. We have, therefore, limited any evaluative comments about these scales but do provide a factual presentation of their characteristics. It is our expectation that this information will provide readers sufficient information to arrive at their own conclusions regarding the relative advantages and disadvantages of these tools.
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Robitaille, J.L., Naglieri, J.A. (2023). Measuring Resilience in Children: From Theory to Practice. In: Goldstein, S., Brooks, R.B. (eds) Handbook of Resilience in Children. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14728-9_11
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