Abstract
Over the past few decades, there has been an increasing interest in understanding youth political engagement. However, it has been argued that the instruments used to assess the concept often lack adequate validation, and this is important as this practice may result in biased statistical conclusions. Consequently, the main aim of the present study was to systematically review, summarize, and critique the extant research evidence on the development of psychometric instruments that assess young people’s political engagement. Following a systematic review of the literature, seven instruments were identified that were both valid and reliable, but none explicitly assessed young people’s political engagement. Instead, they considered broad concepts and/or dimensions related to political engagement. Emphasising the lack of statistically robust standardised measurement tools that empirically assess young people’s political engagement, the available evidence confirms the pressing need to adopt a robust psychometric approach to assess political engagement in youth.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adler, R.P. and Goggin, J. (2005) What do we mean by “civic engagement”? Journal of Transformative Education 3(3): 236–253.
Albacete, G.G. (2014) Young People’s Political Participation in Western Europe: Continuity or Generational Change? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Astin, A.W. and Sax, L.J. (1998) How undergraduates are affected by service participation. The Journal of College Student Development 39: 251–263.
Bandura, A. (1997) Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: Freeman.
Bandura, A. (2006) Guide to the construction of self-efficacy scales. In: F. Pajares and T. Urdan (eds.) Self-efficacy Beliefs of Adolescents (vol. 5, pp. 307–337). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
Barker, C., Pistrang, N. and Elliott, R. (2002) Research Methods in Clinical Psychology, 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley.
Barrett, M. and Brunton-Smith, I. (2014) Political and civic engagement and participation: Towards an integrative perspective. Journal of Civil Society 10(1): 5–28.
Barrett, M. and Zani, B. (2014) Political and Civic Engagement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. London: Routledge.
Bechtel, M.M., Hangartner, D. and Schmid, L. (2015) Compulsory voting, habit formation, and political participation. SSRN 1914333 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1914333, accessed on 21 September 2015.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (2003) Volunteering in the United States, 2003. Washington, DC: Bureau of Labor Statistics. www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.nr0.htm, retrieved 15 August 2015.
Campbell, A., Gurin, G. and Miller, W. (1954) The Voter Decides. Row Peterson: Evanstone.
Campbell, D.T., Stanley, J.C. and Gage, N.L. (1963) Experimental and Quasi-experimental Designs for Research. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Caprara, G.V., Vecchione, M., Capanna, C. and Mebane, M. (2009) Perceived political self-efficacy: Theory, assessment, and applications. European Journal of Social Psychology 39(6): 1002–1020.
Chiessi, M., Cicognani, E. and Sonn, C. (2010) Assessing sense of community on adolescents: Validating the brief scale of sense of community in adolescents (SOC-A). Journal of Community Psychology 38(3): 276–292.
Cicchetti, D.V. (1994) Guidelines, criteria, and rules of thumb for evaluating normed and standardized assessment instruments in psychology. Psychological Assessment 6(4): 284–290.
Cicognani, E., Albanesi, C. and Zani, B. (2006) Il senso di comunità in adolescenza: uno strumento di misura. Bollettino di Psicologia Applicata 250: 13–20.
Dahl, R. (1998) On Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Dalton, R.J. (2008) Citizenship norms and the expansion of political participation. Political Studies 56(1): 76–98.
DeVellis, R.F. (2012) Scale Development: Theory and Applications. London: Sage.
Doolittle, A. and Faul, A.C. (2013) Civic engagement scale. A validation study. SAGE Open 3: 1–7.
Droege, J.R. and Ferrari, J.R. (2012) Toward a new measure for faith and civic engagement: Exploring the structure of the FACE scale. Christian Higher Education 11(3): 146–157.
Ehrlich, T. (1997) Civic learning: Democracy and education revisited. Educational Record 78(3/4): 57–65.
Ekman, J. and Amnå, E. (2012) Political participation and civic engagement: Towards a new typology. Human Affairs 22(3): 283–300.
Farthing, R. (2010) The politics of youthful antipolitics: Representing the ‘issue’ of youth participation in politics. Journal of Youth Studies 13(2): 181–195.
Furr, M. (2011) Scale Construction and Psychometrics for Social and Personality Psychology. London: Sage.
Groth-Marnat, G. (2003) Handbook of Psychological Assessment. Chichester: Wiley.
Hall, M., McKeown, L. and Roberts, K. (2004) Caring Canadians, involved Canadians: Highlights from the 2000 national survey of giving, volunteering and participating. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Statistics Canada. www.givingandvolunteering.ca, retrieved 14 July 2015.
Henn, M. and Oldfield, B. (2016) Cajoling or coercing: Would electoral engineering resolve the young citizen-state disconnect? Journal of Youth Studies doi:10.1080/13676261.2016.1154935.
Henn, M. and Foard, N. (2012) Young people, political participation and trust in Britain. Parliamentary Affairs 65(1): 47–67.
Henn, M., Weinstein, M. and Forrest, S. (2005) Uninterested youth? Young people’s attitudes towards party politics in Britain. Political Studies 53(3): 556–578.
House of Commons (2014) Voter Engagement in the UK. London: House of Commons.
Howitt, D. and Cramer, D. (2011) Introduction to Research Methods in Psychology, 3rd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Ipsos MORI (2001) How Britain Voted, 2001, https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/1231/How-Britain-Voted-In-2001.aspx?view=wide. accessed 18 August 2015.
Ipsos MORI (2015) How Britain Voted, 2015, https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3575/How-Britain-voted-in-2015.aspx?view=wide. accessed 18 August 2015.
Keeter, S., Zukin, C., Andolina, M. and Jenkins, K. (2002) Improving the measurement of political participation. Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association; April, Chicago, USA.
Koronczai, B., Urbán, R., Kökönyei, G., Paksi, B., Papp, K., Kun, B., et al. (2011) Confirmation of the three-factor model of problematic internet use on off-line adolescent and adult samples. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 14(11): 657–664.
Li, Y. and Marsh, D. (2008) New forms of political participation: Searching for expert citizens and everyday makers. British Journal of Political Science 38(2): 247–272.
Long, D.A. and Perkins, D.D. (2003) Confirmatory factor analysis of the Sense of Community Index and development of a Brief SCI. Journal of Community Psychology 31: 279–296.
Mccartney, A.R.M., Bennion, E.A. and Simpson, D.W. (2013) Teaching Civic Engagement: From Student to Active Citizen. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association.
McFadden, C., Maahs-Fldung, C. and Beacham, B. (2009) A study to determine the impact of service-learning on students’ attitudes on civic engagement. The Journal for Civic Commitment 13(1): 1–12.
McMillan, D.W. and Chavis, D.M. (1986) Sense of community: A definition and theory. Journal of Community Psychology 14(1): 6–23.
Moher, D., Liberati, A., Tetzlaff, J. and Altman, D.G. (2009) Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: The PRISMA statement. Annals of Internal Medicine 151(4): 264–269.
Norris, P. (2002) Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Toole, T. (2015) Beyond crisis narratives: changing modes and repertoires of political participation among young people. In: K.S. Kallio, Mills and T. Skelton (eds.) Politics, Citizenship and Rights vol. 7. Singapore: Springer, pp. 1–15.
Pancer, S.M., Pratt, M., Hunsberger, B. and Alisat, S. (2007) Community and political involvement in adolescence: What distinguishes the activists from the uninvolved? Journal of Community Psychology 35(6): 741–759.
Pasquino, G. (1997) Corso di Scienza Politica [Course of Political Science]. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Peterson, N.A., Speer, P.W. and McMillan, D.W. (2008) Validation of a brief sense of community scale: Confirmation of the principal theory of sense of community. Journal of Community Psychology 36(1): 61–73.
Phelps, E. (2004) Young citizens and changing electoral turnout, 1964–2001. The Political Quarterly 75(3): 238–248.
Putnam, R.D. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Sartori, G. (2007) Democrazia: cosa è [Democracy: what is]. Milano: Rizzoli.
Sloam, J. (2014) New voice, less equal: The civic and political engagement of young people in the United States and Europe. Comparative Political Studies 47(5): 663–688.
Vecchione, M., Caprara, G.V., Caprara, M.G., Alessandri, G., Tabernero, C. and González-Castro, J.L. (2014) The perceived political self-efficacy scale–short form (PPSE-S): A validation study in three mediterranean countries. Cross-Cultural Research 48(4): 368–384.
Wattenberg, M.P. (2002) Where have all the Voters Gone? Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Watts, R.J. and Flanagan, C. (2007) Pushing the envelope on youth civic engagement: A developmental and liberation psychology perspective. Journal of Community Psychology 35(6): 779–792.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pontes, A.I., Henn, M. & Griffiths, M.D. Assessing young people’s political engagement: A critical and systematic literature review of the instruments used to measure political engagement. Int Polit Rev 4, 55–72 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41312-016-0002-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41312-016-0002-4