Cognitive Interviewing with Young Children

In May 2017, the Fostering Resilience Initiative (FRI) within the Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC) evaluated ACE Haiti’s innovative program, using cognitive interviews to better capture SEL and the local context. FRI conducted 40 cognitive interviews with grade 1-3 students on the north coast of Haiti in three parish school communities—urban, peri-urban, and rural. FRI’s study led to 58 changes to the International Social and Emotional Learning Assessment (ISELA). This summary describes the changes made and what was learned through the process, focusing on recommendations for researchers and practitioners who want to conduct similar measure adaptation with children in low-resource and fragile contexts.