The modification and standardisation of the Harter self-esteem questionnaire with Scottish school children

This paper describes a study to modify an American questionnaire measuring self-esteem in children for use in the United Kingdom and also to obtain normative values for this questionnaire with Scottish school children aged 8–15 years. Five thousand children resident in the Lothian Region of Scotland, a 5% sample of the age group, were identified using a cluster sampling technique in order to provide a random sample of the general population for this age group. The main findings were as follows: children usually rated themselves higher than the midpoint on most subscales, indicating that they have a positive regard for themselves; boys tended to rate themselves higher than girls on most subscales except behaviour; scores tended to decline as children get older, especially for girls; global or overall self-esteem was highly correlated with the other subscales, especially physical appearance or attractiveness; self-esteem scores were not influenced by social class, school or religion. The modified Harter questionnaire can be used to measure self-esteem in several situations. These include comparisons between different groups of children, changes in self-esteem following treatment interventions or the effects of illness on children's psychological adjustment. Finally, the study has provided normative values for a Scottish population of school children aged 8–15 years.