The Educational Aspirations and Psychological Wellbeing of Adopted Young People

Full report: The Educational Aspirations and Psychological Wellbeing of Adopted Young People

Published by: Adoption & Fostering, March 2019

SUMMARY

The team analysed data from the UK Household Longitudinal Survey, also known as Understanding Society. The survey collects data from more than 30,000 households over a period of 24 months for each wave. The researchers took their data from questionnaires completed by 10- to 15-year-olds and their final sample for analysis consisted of a group of 22 adopted young people and a general population comparison group of 110 young people.

Questionnaires completed by the young people included the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), which rates emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, peer relationship problems and pro-social behaviour (behaviour that benefits others) on a scale of one to 10. The emotional and peer relationship sections were combined into one scale known as "internalising symptoms" and the conduct and hyperactivity scores were combined into another called "externalising symptoms", yielding a range of possible scores from 0 to 20. A total difficulties score was obtained by combining everything apart from pro-social scores, yielding scores that could range from 0 to 40.