Measuring agency in children: The development and validation of the War Child Agency Assessment Scale - Palestinian version (WCAAS-Pal).

Guido Veronese,Federica Cavazzoni,Alessandro Pepe,Hania Obaid,Shaher Yaghi

doi:10.1007/s12144-021-02449-1

Guido Veronese, Federica Cavazzoni + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02449-1

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Abstract

In the present article, we aimed at construing a new quantitative measure of children’s agency in Palestine. Within a socio-ecological and culturally and contextually informed perspective, the study introduces the development of a new instrument to investigate and evaluate children’s agentic practices within their living contexts and their daily lives. First, we evaluated the model of measurement of WCAAS-Pal using a sequential exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Following the principles of testing a quantitative measure in the context of the dual-frame sampling method, the process of validating the quantitative measure was conducted on a group of 1166 Palestinian children aged 9 to 14 years (m = 11.58, sd = 1.54). Second, a sample of 251 Palestinian children aged between 9 and 14 years (m = 11.82, sd = 1.53) was used to compute the reliability of the instrument along with both convergent and divergent validity using the Children Hope Scale and the Children Revised Impact of Event Scale-Arabic Version measures, respectively. The results of the EFA suggested a baseline seven-factor structure to be further assessed via CFA. a complex web of agency domains that might contribute to the child psychological functioning when forced to leave in conditions of ongoing threat and military violence emerged from the analysis.

Highlights

Within the human and social sciences, the concept of agency is nowadays considered almost a mantra (Durham, 2008)
The exploration of the War Child Agency Assessment Scale - Palestinian version’s (WCAAS-Pal) measurement model, followed standard procedures for validating quantitative self-reports (Matsunaga, 2010; Mertler & Reinhart, 2016). This means that we evaluated the model of measurement of WCAAS-Pal using a sequential exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)
The instrument’s dimensions emerging from the factor analysis showed and confirmed the ecological and multilevel nature of agency construct in children affected by war and military violence, the factorial structure of the instrument revealed a complex web of agency domains that might contribute to the child psychological functioning when forced to leave in conditions of ongoing threat and military violence (Strang & Wessells, 2006)

Summary

Introduction

Within the human and social sciences, the concept of agency is nowadays considered almost a mantra (Durham, 2008). While many scholars have dedicated their efforts to analyzing and exploring it in different populations and contexts, the construct is often understood differently, highlighting the lack of a single conceptualization and theory behind it. At times this construct is associated with more purely interpersonal characteristics (e.g., self-efficacy, mastery, internal locus of control) and defined in terms of the ability to exert control over one’s life and pursue goals (Beyers et al, 2003; Poteat et al, 2018).

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