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The Measurement Scale

Depression. The Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2; Kroenke, Spitzer, & Williams, 2003) is a shortened form of the nine-item PHQ and consists of 2-items. The PHQ-2 requires participants to indicate whether they have been bothered by feelings of “little interest or pleasure in doing things” and whether they have felt “down, depressed, or hopeless” over the last weeks.

Anxiety. The Generalised Anxiety Disorder-2 scale GAD-2; Kroenke, Spitzer, Williams, Monahan, and Löwe (2007) is a two-item questionnaire.  The two items require participants to indicate whether they have been bothered by “feeling nervous, anxious or on edge” and “not being able to stop or control worrying” over the last two-weeks.

Sleep Quality. Sleep quality will be assessed using a modified version of the four-item scale developed by Vazsonyi et al. (2015). Participants will be asked to indicate whether they have experienced any sleep problems (e.g. feeling like sleeping all day long or having trouble falling asleep at night) in the last two-weeks.

Resilience. The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale – 10 item (CD-RISC-10) (Campbell-Sills & Stein, 2007) is a 10-item self-report questionnaire assessing participant’s ability to cope with stress, shortened from the original 25-item questionnaire (Connor & Davidson, 2003). The shortened scale was selected to ease the participant burden.

More about the CD-RISC

The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) is the core of the measurement tool.  This 10 element scale has strong psychometric properties and covers five inter-related domains: 

  • Personal Competence
  • Acceptance of Change and secure relationships
  • Tolerance
  • Control
  • Spiritual Influences

Considered to be one of the highest-scoring scales in the psychometric evaluation of resilience. (Windle, Bennett & Noyes, 2011)


Social Identity. Two aspects of social identity will be measured; belonging and centrality. Belonging will be assessed using Sheldon and Bettencourt (2002) three-item inclusion scale (e.g. “I feel a sense of belonging at this school”). Alternatively, centrality will be measured using Ellemers, Kortekaas, and Ouwerkerk (1999) three-item self-categorisation subscale (e.g. “I am like the other students at my school”).

Smartphone Addiction. The Smartphone Application-Based Addiction Scale (SABAS) contains six-items that screen for risk of smartphone addiction. Participants are asked to respond to statements about their smartphone use habits (e.g. “my smartphone is the most important thing in my life”)

Growth Mindset.  Student’s beliefs about their personal ability to change their intelligence will be assessed using the eight-item Implicit Theories of Intelligence Scale Self-Theory scale (De Castella & Byrne, 2015). Each items assess, from a first person perspective, claims about the extent to which intelligence is fixed (e.g. “I don't think I personally can do much to increase my intelligence.”) or malleable (e.g. “With enough time and effort I think I could significantly improve my intelligence level.”).

Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness. The 21-item Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction Scale will be used to determine the degree to which an individual experiences satisfaction for each of the three needs; autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Participants will be asked to think about how the items (e.g. “I feel like I am free to decide for myself how to live my life”) relate to their life.

Helicopter Parenting. The five-item over-parenting scale will be used to assess whether students feel that their parents/guardians are too involved in their lives (e.g. “I think my parents/guardians are too overly involved in my life”).
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