Improving life opportunities for girls in Africa

None

The Psychometrics Centre is currently working with Camfed, a Cambridge-based charity with an on-going programme of activities in Zimbabwe and Tanzania, to develop assessment instruments for an educational intervention programme, the aim of which is to improve education and life opportunities for girls and women in Africa.

The assessment consists of four scales based on ideas of well-being defined by Camfed's programme of activity. 

  • Importance taps into the perception of what matters in daily life when wellbeing is optimised. E.g. material things, job satisfaction, friends, etc.
  • Self-efficacy looks at the degree of confidence respondents have in their abilities to engage in the behaviours described in Camfed’s well-being training materials.
  • Self-awareness gauges how self-aware respondents are about their their behaviour and its impact on others.
  • Motivation gauges whether participants are motivated to engage in the behaviours that might contribute to well-being.

The pilot questionnaires were originally designed in English and underwent a process of translation into the Swahili language, followed by back-translation and cognitive interviews, in order to create parallel versions in both languages. Pilot studies were carried out in both Zimbabwe (English language version) and Tanzania (Swahili language version) and the final questionnaires derived on the basis of these data.

Click here for more information about Camfed and their work.