Leuven Scales of Involvement and Well-being
NOTE: There are two useful pdf downloads available at the bottom of this page
The Leuven Well-being and Involvement scales
The Leuven scales provide a useful tool for observing children’s well-being and engagement. Well-being focuses on the extent to which pupils feel at ease, act spontaneously, show vitality and self-confidence. It is a crucial component of emotional intelligence and good mental health. Well-being impacts on our levels of curiosity, creative development and our ability to make meaning and new understandings. Involvement focuses on the extent to which pupils are operating to their full capabilities. In particular it refers to whether the child is focused, engaged and interested in various activities.
This tool has been developed by a team based at the Research Centre for Experiential Education (Leuven University – Belgium) under the supervision of Dr.Ferre Laevers. The tool focuses on two central indicators of quality early years provision: children’s ‘well-being’ and ‘involvement’. Well-being refers to feeling at ease, being spontaneous and free of emotional tensions and is crucial to good ‘mental health’. Well-being is linked to self-confidence, a good degree of self-esteem and resilience. Involvement refers to being intensely engaged in activities and is considered to be a necessary condition for deep level learning and development.
Using the Assessment of Well-being and Involvement Scales
Laevers has created a 5 point scale to measure both well-being and involvement. If there is a consistent low level of well-being and or involvement, it is likely a child’s development will be threatened. The higher the levels of well-being and involvement we can achieve for the child, the more we can add to the child’s development. When there are high levels of well-being and involvement, we know that deep level learning is taking place.
The evaluation starts with assessing the levels of well-being and involvement using the tables. The procedure is simple and can be compared to ‘scanning’. Observe the children individually or as a group for about two minutes then give a score for wellbeing and/or involvement using the five-point scale. Unless children are operating at 4 or 5, learning will be limited. It is unrealistic to suggest that children will be operating at levels 4 or 5 all of the time as levels will fluctuate throughout the day. However, it is useful to observe how well practitioners tune in to the children’s levels of well-being and involvement and respond to low levels sensitively. Even a low level of well being or involvement can become a learning opportunity which can result in higher levels.
(Ref: Well-being and Involvement in Care Settings. A Process-oriented Self-evaluation Instrument, Ferre Laevers (Ed.) Research Centre for Experiential Education, Leuven University. ISBN: 978-90-77343-76-8)
The Leuven Scale for Well-being
|
Level |
Well-being
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Signals
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1 |
Extremely low |
The child clearly shows signs of discomfort such as crying or screaming. They may look dejected, sad, frightened or angry. The child does not respond to the environment, avoids contact and is withdrawn. The child may behave aggressively, hurting him/herself or others
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2 |
Low |
The posture, facial expression and actions indicate that the child does not feel at ease. However, the signals are less explicit than under level 1 or the sense of discomfort is not expressed the whole time.
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3 |
Moderate |
The child has a neutral posture. Facial expression and posture show little or no emotion. There are no signs indicating sadness or pleasure, comfort or discomfort.
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4 |
High |
The child shows obvious signs of satisfaction (as listed under level 5). However, these signals are not constantly present with the same intensity.
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5 |
Extremely high
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The child looks happy and cheerful, smiles, cries out with pleasure. They may be lively and full of energy. Actions can be spontaneous and expressive. The child may talk to him/herself, play with sounds, hum, sing. The child appears relaxed and does not show any signs of stress or tension. He /she is open and accessible to the environment. The child expresses self-confidence and self-assurance.
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The Leuven Scale for Involvement
|
Level |
Well-being
|
Signals
|
|
1 |
Extremely low |
Activity is simple, repetitive and passive. The child seems absent and displays no energy. They may stare into space or look around to see what others are doing.
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2 |
Low |
Frequently interrupted activity. The child will be engaged in the activity for some of the time they are observed, but there will be moments of non-activity when they will stare into space, or be distracted by what is going on around.
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3 |
Moderate |
Mainly continuous activity. The child is busy with the activity but at a fairly routine level and there are few signs of real involvement. They make some progress with what they are doing but don’t show much energy and concentration and can be easily distracted.
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4 |
High |
Continuous activity with intense moments. The child’ activity has intense moments and at all times they seem involved. They are not easily distracted.
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5 |
Extremely high
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The child shows continuous and intense activity revealing the greatest involvement. They are concentrated, creative, energetic and persistent throughout nearly all the observed period.
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Measuring well-being and involvement
The evaluation process begins by assessing the levels of well-being and involvement using the scales outlined above. Educators must observe pupils as a group or individually for a period of approximately two minutes then give a score for wellbeing and/or involvement. It is thought that unless pupils are operating at 4 or 5, learning will be limited. However, it is natural for levels of well-being and involvement to fluctuate throughout the day and it is therefore unrealistic to expect children will be pupils to operate at levels 4 or 5 at all times.
The initial observation is the starting point for further analysis concentrating on pupils with lower levels of well-being and / or involvement. This analysis should inform educators about the quality and suitability of their work and it should provide some sort of framework for intervention toward individual pupils.
Measuring a child’s wellbeing and involvement can also empower and energiser teachers and practitioners. If educators can see that their efforts are leading to a high level of wellbeing involvement in their pupils then it’s likely that this will serve as a galvanising force and result in a cycle of continual improvement.
Actions to improve outcomes
The Research Centre for Experiential Education (RCEE) has produced list of 10 action points that should help practitioners to focus the learning environment on the well-being and involvement of pupils:
- Rearrange the classroom in appealing corners or areas.
- Check the content of the areas and make them more challenging.
- Introduce new and unconventional materials and activities.
- Identify children’s interests and offer activities that meet these.
- Support activities by stimulating inputs.
- Widen the possibilities for free initiative and support them with sound agreements.
- Improve the quality of the relations amongst children and between children and teacher(s).
- Introduce activities that help children to explore the world of behaviour, feelings and values.
- Identify children with emotional problems and work out sustaining interventions.
- Identify children with developmental needs and work out interventions that engender involvement.
Interaction
Professor Ferre Laevers (director of the RCEE) highlights the importance of the way in which adults interact with children and highlights: stimulation, sensitivity and providing autonomy.
“Stimulating interventions are open impulses that engender involvement, such as: suggesting activities to children, inviting children to communicate, asking thought-provoking questions and giving rich information. Sensitivity is evidenced in responses that witness empathic understanding of the child. Giving autonomy means: respecting the children’s initiative, acknowledging their interests, giving them room for experimentation, letting them decide upon the way an activity is performed and letting them participate in the setting of rules”.
Research on outcomes
High levels of well-being and involvement lead in the end to high levels of child development. There are four core outcomes sought in Experiential Education:
- Emotional health, a foundational feature that refers to social-emotional conditions captured by the Rogerian concept of the “fully functioning person” which connects with self-esteem, self-confidence and resilience.
- Nurturing the learner’s exploratory drive is critical as it can lead to lifelong learning. The challenge for education is not only to keep this intrinsic source of motivation alive, but also to make it encompass all domains that are relevant to functioning in society. The aim is to encourage deep-level learning as opposed to superficial learning that does not affect the basic competencies and has little transfer to real life situations.
- Valued competences and dispositions in a range of relevant domains, such as communication, the understanding of the physical world, social competence and self-organization (including entrepreneurship). The observation scales capture such competences in young children and fit into a new paradigm on outcomes as the approach is holistic in nature and views competences as life skills.
- Preserving the basic attitude of “linkedness” expresses a concern for the development of a positive orientation towards reality. A basic sense of “connectedness” can prevent destructive and anti-social behaviour (delinquency). In fact there are five parts to this basic attitude: linkedness with oneself; with other(s); with the material world, with society and with the entirety of the cosmos (transcendence).
Further reading:
Laevers F. The Leuven Involvement Scale for Young Children. Manual and video. Leuven, Belgium: Centre for Experiential Education; 1994. Experiential Education Series, No 1.
Laevers F. Moons J. Enhancing well-being and involvement in children. An introduction in the ten action points [videotape]. Leuven, Belgium: Centre for Experiential Education; 1997.
Laevers F, Bogaerts M, Moons J. Experiential education at work. A setting with 5-year olds [manual and videotape]. Leuven, Belgium: Centre for Experiential Education; 1997.
Laevers F. The curriculum as means to raise the quality of ECE. Implications for policy. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 2005;13(1):17-30.
Laevers F. Improving quality of care with well-being and involvement as the guides. A large scale study in Flemish Setting. Final report. Leuven, Belgium: Kind & Gezin. CEGO Leuven University; 2009.
Laevers F, Declercq B, Thomas F. Implementation of the process-oriented approach in early years settings in Milton Keynes. Final report. Leuven, Belgium: CEGO Leuven University; 2010.
Laevers F. Deep level learning: an exemplary application on the area of physical knowledge. European Early Childhood Research Journal 1993;1(1):53-68.