The aim of study one was to make a comparison between SEBD and non-SEBD groups. This allowed the resilience between the young people with SEBD (target group) and those who have no known SEBD (comparison group) to be compared.
3.3.1 Design
This study applied between subjects comparison of quantitative data. The two groups were young people with SEBD and a group of young people with no known SEBD.
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3.3.2Participants
Study 1 comprised of a sample of 33 participants. A comparison group (n=25; female n= 17; male n=8) were recruited from a school in the West Midlands and were aged be- tween 14-18 years (mean age = 15, sd = +0.12); which complies with validated age ranges of the RSCA. The target group consisted of 8 pupils with SEBD who were recruit- ed from the same school as the comparison group, who were also aged between 14-18 years (female n= 5, male n=3; mean age = 15, sd = +0.2). The sample of all pupils was selected randomly by both teaching and SENCO staff, who were already familiar with the pupils.
3.3.3 Materials: The RSCA (Prince-Embury, 2006)
The RSCA (Prince-Embury, 2006), is a reliable and validated, self-reporting scale used to measure the resilience in a population of adolescents with SEBD. It has been designed to allow the child or adolescent to express their own opinion about how they view themselves and how they relate to others in the world in which they reside. The scales are divided into three subscales: Sense of Mastery (MAS), Sense of Relatedness (REL) and Emotional Reactivity (REA). The scale was administered as a quantitative measure to evaluate resilience through the eyes of the young people themselves, allowing for the broadest understanding of the adolescent’s resiliency profile. The scales were adminis- tered by the researcher, who has been trained by an appropriate experienced clinician.
3.3.3.1 Sense of Mastery (MAS) (Prince-Embury, 2010)
MAS is considered to be the core characteristics of resilience and all about how a young person interacts and enjoys (or not) their relationships and their environment. The MAS has 20 questions which are divided into three subscales which consist of three conceptually related content areas of optimism, self-efficacy and adaptability. A high score in this category indicates that the adolescent has a high MAS, which indicates that they are able to successfully adapt to people and their environment.
3.3.3.2 The Sense of Relatedness (REL) (Prince-Embury, 2010)
The REL is about being in a relationship with others and is based on the assumption that we are all capable of this. The REL aims to capture these attributes in young peo- ple. This scale consists of four subscales, comprising 24 questions, which cover the are-
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as of trust, support comfort and tolerance. A high score in this category indicates that the adolescent is trusting and is able to feel supported and comforted by those around them as well as having a high tolerance to their circumstances.
3.3.3.3 Emotional Reactivity (REA) (Prince-Embury, 2010)
REA is seen as vulnerability or threshold of tolerance that is pre-existing, before any ad- verse circumstances occur. REA has three subscales, which comprises 20 questions, covering sensitivity, recovery and impairment. A high score in this category is the op- posite of the above two categories, here a high score indicates the adolescents ability to manage their emotions successfully and feel overwhelmed and unable to recover quick- ly from any disruptions they encounter.
The example below illustrates two example questions from each of the three scales. On the right of each question are five options from which the participants are asked to se- lect one and circle.
0 1 2 3 4
Sense of mastery
1. Life is Fair Never Rarely Sometimes Often Almost
Always 2. I can make good things happen Never Rarely Sometimes Often Almost Always Sense of Relatedness
1. I can meet new people easily Never Rarely Sometimes Often Almost Always 2. I can make new friends easily Never Rarely Sometimes Often Almost Always Emotional Reactivity
1. It is easy for me to get upset Never Rarely Sometimes Often Almost Always 2. People say that I am easy to up-
set Never Rarely Sometimes Often Almost Always
Never Rarely Sometimes Often Almost Always (Table 1: Example of resiliency scale scoring, taken from the RSCA, Prince-Embury, 2010)
Each item on all three subscales has five responses to choose, from 0 (Never) to 4 (Al- most Always). The scale is a validated Psychometric Test. The principal component and confirmatory factor analysis support a three3-factor model for both males and females in more than one study (Prince-Embury, 2013; Thorne and Kohut 2007). The psycho- metrics are adequate. Alpha coefficients are high across three age ranges (9 – 11, 12 – 14 and 15 to 18) for both males and females (sample sizes 100 – 113) for all 10 sub-
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scales with the exception of the 3-item Adaptability scale for both sexes in the two low- er age groups (i.e., α ranged from .52 to .64 in these four groups). Internal consistency was highest in the oldest age level with α’s ranging from .79 to .95. In another study good test- retest reliability was found for two age band s, 9 – 14 (n = 49) and 15 – 18 (n = 65). For the three full scales this ranged from .79 to .88 and for the 10 subscales from .62 to .85. (Prince Embury, 2006)
The pupils responded by circling the answer that they felt most related to themselves. The T Score is calculated by adding up the corresponding numbers of the respective choices made for each subscale. This score is then used to identify the correct T Score.
A T Score range, is the provided by the manual for interpretation, where the scores of 60 or above are seen as high, 56 to 59 as above average, 46 to 55 as average, 41 to 45 as below average and 40 or below as low, (Appendix 3). Adolescent participants’ respons- es to the scales were scored and put in the corresponding interpretative qualitative band. This will be illustrated in the next chapter using the profiles of the eight target group participants. It is important to note that the conversion of the raw score to T scores, allows for the differences of interpretation between the different ages of the adolescents. So for example, if Jack and Jill score 26 for REL, yet Jack is 16 years and Jill is 12 years, the score are still relevant due to the conversion of the T scores.
3.3.4 Procedure
Following favourable ethical review, the head teacher was approached, from a school with which the researcher had prior connections. They were provided with the infor- mation sheet (Appendix 4). Pastoral and teaching staff identified suitable pupils for both the comparison and target groups. The selection for the comparison group was based on two criteria: (1) as students achieving within a range of abilities, and (2) who were not diagnosed with SEBD. For the target group the, criteria was based on the premise that participants had been identified by the school as having a recognised SEBD. To minimise confounding variables, participants were excluded if they had severe learning difficulties. Permission for the participation in study 1 was granted by the school, who gave ‘loco parentis’.
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A pastoral member of staff escorted the young people from their classroom to the allo- cated room. The pupils were all given the information sheet to read (Appendix 4) and were asked if they needed any help to read or understand what it meant. Once it was established they had understood what the study was about and what they were re- quired to do, they were asked if they would like to take part. They were told they could take as long as they needed, to ask the researcher any questions that they did not un- derstand, and to take a break if they needed, at which point the researcher would take their questionnaire and give it back to them when they resumed. Background demo- graphic information was gathered, by asking the participants to provide details of their age, gender and ethnic background. They were then invited to answer all the questions in each of the sections. They were asked to give only one answer to each question and to fill it in on their own and to ask only the researcher, qualified to administer the scale, any questions they did not understand. None of the participants chose to take a break and completed the questionnaire in full. The participants were not given any compen- sation or incentive for taking part in the study and participation was completely volun- tary and of their own choice. The scale took between 10-15 minutes depending on the reading ability and mental status of the individual. All participants were given a de- briefing sheet (Appendix 5).
3.3.5 Data Analysis
The T scores were analysed using the t-test, which was used to compare the mean scores from each group with each other. In this case it was used to determine the rela- tionship between the resilience scores of the comparison group and the target group. 3.3.6 Ethical considerations
In line with the BPS Code of Human Research Ethics (2016), the following ethical con- siderations were reflected upon and put into place: Study 1: Ascent for the under 16: As the pupils who took part in Study 1 were aged between 14-18 years old, it was im- portant that the researcher followed the appropriate procedures in correspondence with the young people’s age. The school gave permission, ‘in loco parentis’, for the anonymous sample of 25, however they were still given the option not to proceed if they did not wish to do so. Subject to the requirements of legislation, including the GDPR information obtained from and about a participant during an investigation is confiden-
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tial unless otherwise agreed in advance. The participants were not required to give their name for this part of the study and were therefore kept anonymous. Their age and gender were requested so the researcher could report any significant attributes corre- sponding to these two elements and also to ensure, particularly in relation to age, that the appropriate ethical procedures were being followed for the young people. All scales were kept in a locked cabinet at the research site. Participation in the survey did not present any anticipation for risk or harm as the questionnaire was designed for children and adolescents. A break was offered to anyone who showed signs of struggling, or who needed help with the questionnaire. All participants were debriefed, and given contact details of the researcher if they felt they wanted to discuss anything that may have aris- en from answering the questions from the scale. To date none of the pupils contacted the student support in relation to participation in the questionnaire or as, a result of it.
3.4 Study 2