The instructions for use have been taken from the documentation provided by Collier and MacKinlay to accompany the Norm value data archived in, and accessible from, the UKDataService http://doc.ukdataservice.ac.uk/doc/4412/mrdoc/pdf/a4412uab.pdf
The 25 questions in the GCQ have been derived from children’s own views of what made their lives good or bad. The development of the measure began in 1993 with approaches to children to as- certain what they considered affected their quality of life. Eighty children aged 6, 11 and 13 years were approached in schools and asked to identify what made their lives good or bad, all children were asked to identify both positive and negative influences. A large proportion of the answers directly related to interpersonal relationships and how the children felt they were perceived by important others. The GCQ includes a general satisfaction question, “how much of the time they feel happy with their life”.
The format for the questionnaire has been given great consideration. Children are reassured that there are no right or wrong answers via a story format in the measure, whereby five children chat about different things. In the sample question, for example, all the children are talking about how often they like to watch television. One child always likes watching television, one child often likes watching television, one child sometimes likes watching television, one child hardly ever likes watching television and the other child never likes watching television. No child is indicated to be better than the others are and all have different views. As well as being a non-threatening introduction to the measure, this initial question introduces the child to the five-point frequency scale. The child completing the questionnaire is asked to relate to the responses of the children in the story, first ticking the child they feel is most like themselves, then later ticking the child they would most like to be. These provide the perceived-self score and the preferred-self score. As quality of life can be assessed by measuring satisfaction with how life is compared to how one might want or expect it to be [3, 10, 11] the discrepancy between the two scores for each question provides the QOL score. For ease of interpretation and discussion, the discrepancy totals are transformed in order for high scores to indicate a high quality of life.
A Likert scale is used with five options (always, often, sometimes, hardly ever, never) and all questions are phrased to fit these responses. A Likert scale was considered to be simple enough for the children to understand and previous research has shown that children can use a Likert scale meaningfully if shown how to do so [2, 14]. The initial sample question also allows the researcher to ascertain whether the child has understood the frequency continuum. The story format makes the measure more child-friendly, but the layout is also visually attractive to the children. Instead of tick boxes there are `tick girls’ or `tick boys’ which also allows the measure to read “Tick the boy most like you”. As the GCQ is sex-specific, five boys or five girls talking, it simplifies the language.
The children first complete all 25 questions relating to the child they feel is most like themselves, they are then instructed to turn to a further answer section and answer the questions relating to the child they would most like to be. The layout of the form ensures that this is understood by completely separating the first 25 tick boxes (for the questions relating to the child they feel is most like themselves) from the second 25 tick boxes (for the questions relating to the child they would most like to be). The researcher reads out the questions when required. To assess whether a child completing the measure can carry out the task meaningfully the sample question outlined in the section on the GCQ measure, is at the beginning of the story.
1. How often they have fun
2. How often they are happy and smiling
3. How often they worry about things*
4. How often they spend time with friends
5. How often they have enough friends
6. How much of the time other people understood how they felt
7. How much of the time they are picked on*
8. How often they help others
9. How often they hurt other people*
10. How often they get upset*
11. How often they feel bored*
12. How often they can go to someone if they have a problem
13. How much of the time they like their parents
14. How much of the time they think their parents love them
15. How often they are told o ff (at home)*
16. How often they are allowed to choose for themselves
17. How much of the time they feel happy with their life
18. How often they are really ill*
19. How often this stops them from doing things that they want to do*
20. How happy they are about the way they look
21. How often they feel different from other children*
22. How often they try hard with their work.
23. How often they are told off by the teacher*
24. How often they feel more clever than other children
25. How often they are good at sport
* Scoring reversed for these items.