Survey of Perceptions of School Climate: A positive school climate is friendly, inviting and supportive; pupils feel safe and are treated fairly, by their peers and the school staff. A school that struggles to maintain a positive school climate often creates an environment that discourages students from attending. In the Survey of Perceptions of School Climate, respondents are asked about statements describing different dimensions of school life and must answer according to their perception of whether it is true or not for their school. For example, pupils and teachers were asked statements, such “In this school, teachers treat boys and girls equally,” “In this school, violence is a problem,” or “In this school, pupils are punished too much for little things.” The survey is composed of 29 school climate statements that are used to assess pupils and the school staff perceptions of the climate for their school. Using a staged approach, respondents are initially asked if they “agreed” or “disagreed” that the statement read to them was true for their school. The respondent could either respond verbally or point to the appropriate response card (response cards are appended to the tool). Once they selected the first response, they were then asked if they “agreed,” “strongly agreed,” “disagreed,” or “strongly disagreed” with the statement. This staged approach was introduced to encourage increased variation in the responses. The data collectors display only the two appropriate cards (“agreed” or “disagreed”) for the initial step and then only the two cards (e.g., Agree and Strongly Agree or Disagree and Strongly Disagree) for the second step. The data collectors record only the final answer. Students’ Experience of SRGBV Survey: The Survey of Pupil Experiences of SRGBV assesses the extent that a pupil experiences the three different forms of SRGBV: (1) bullying, (2) corporal punishment, and (3) sexual harassment and assault. The subject of violence against pupils is a sensitive topic and it can be difficult for a child to respond to a survey that asks him or her to recollect and report on violent experiences. Due to the sensitive nature of this survey, it is critical that the survey administrator develop a safe and trusting environment for collecting data. To this end, the set of questions for each subscale (i.e., bullying, corporal punishment, and sexual violence) is preceded by an ice-breaker activity. An icebreaker story is read to the pupil and a brief informal discussion about the topic takes place before the survey questions are administered. This is extremely helpful in assisting the pupils to understand, in advance, what the questions are about and to enhance their comfort during the session. After the rapport building session for each subscale, pupils are asked to think about different specific acts of violence related to the subscale and to report how many times they experienced each act of violence during the school term. Pupils could either respond verbally or point to the appropriate response card (response cards are appended to the tool). The response options are “Never”, “Once”, “A few times” and “Many times”. Gender Attitudes Survey: Gender discriminating norms, combined with the hierarchical power structures that reinforce these norms, are some of the root causes of SRGBV and enable all forms of SRGBV to go unchecked in and around schools. The eventual goal of eliminating SRGBV requires a shift in gender attitudes to be more favorable toward gender equity and toward more balanced power relations. The Gender Attitudes Survey provides a mechanism to track changes in gender attitudes as a result of the Journeys intervention. Pupils, school staff and parents/guardians can participate in the Gender Attitudes Survey. Respondents are asked if they agree or disagree with different statements that reflect common gender roles and stereotypes, including gendered behavior traits, such as “boys should not cry” and “girls should be quiet and shy,” gender roles, such as “women should not disagree with their husbands,” gendered education expectations for boys and girls, such as “it is more important for boys than girls to perform well in school,” and hierarchical power structures reinforcing male aggression against women, such as “there are times when it is acceptable for a man to beat his wife.” The survey is composed of 14 gender norms statements that are used to assess the attitudes of pupils, school staff and parents. Using a staged approach, respondents are initially asked if they “agreed” or “disagreed” that the statement read was true for them. The respondent could either respond verbally or point to the appropriate response card (response cards are appended to the tool). Once they selected the first response, they were then asked if they “agreed,” “strongly agreed,” “disagreed,” or “strongly disagreed” with the statement. This staged approach was introduced to encourage increased variation in the responses. The data collectors display only the two appropriate cards (“agreed” or “disagreed”) for the initial step and then only the two cards (e.g., Agree and Strongly Agree or Disagree and Strongly Disagree) for the second step. The data collectors record only the final answer. Student SEL Survey: The Student SEL Survey was designed to track the benefits of the Journeys for Pupils component of the integrated three-component Journeys intervention (i.e. Journeys for Pupils, Journeys for School Staff and Journeys for Community Members). Journeys for Pupils is aimed at strengthening pupils’ social and emotional skills. At the same time, the program provides exposure to content that promotes a consciousness about contributing to a positive school culture and climate and preventing SRGBV. This survey was not meant to comprehensively assess all aspects of SEL, but rather to assess the social and emotional skills that best serve pupils’ ability to successfully navigate their world, avoid violence, and seek assistance when they do witness or experience violence. In this survey, pupils are asked to listen to a variety of statements depicting different behaviors representing certain social skills. For each statement pupils are asked to think about how true this is for them. They are asked (and trained with practice items) to either respond verbally or point to the appropriate response card (response cards are appended to the tool). The response choices are “Never True for Me”, “Rarely True for Me”, “Sometimes True for Me”, and “Always True for Me”. Demographics and Family Wealth Survey: The Demographics and Family Wealth Survey includes a set of questions that focus on the pupil’s home environment to better understand and control for socioeconomic factors when analyzing the impact of the Journeys intervention. Pupils are asked whether they have a variety of household items in the home, their water source, source of heat for cooking, and sanitary facilities. A stimuli with pictures to aid pupils identify the appropriate items is appended to the survey.

LARA developed a set of qualitative tools to learn about the successes and challenges related to the implementation of Journeys and to understand what changes staff and pupils had observed since Journeys started in the program schools. The qualitative tools include individual interviews and focus group discussion (FGD) guides with head teachers, teaching and non-teaching staff, change agents and students. There are two individual interviews, one for the teachers and another for the head teachers. The individual interview for teachers investigates the value the Journeys program has brought to the teachers personally, to the school and the classroom, for example changes in the way teachers relate and interact with pupils and changes in disciplinary practices at the school. The individual interview for head teachers on the other hand investigate what has gone well and what the head teachers are struggling with regarding the implementation of Journeys for School Staff and Journeys for Pupils (the Uganda Kids Unite [UKU] Program). There are three FGD guides; (i) FGD guide for teaching and non-teaching staff provides information about the changes (for example interactions among students, teacher attendance, extent of SRGBV) in the school as a result of Journeys, initiatives undertaken by the school to make the school safe and positive and how the initiatives improved the school and/or reduced violence; (ii) FGD guide for head Teachers and school change agents (SCA) that gathers feedback on the successes and challenges associated with the implementation of Journeys program for the school staff and Journeys program for pupils as well as improvements needed to for the continuity of the Journeys program in the schools; and (iii) FGD guide for students that focuses mainly on what pupils enjoyed most about the UKU program and the specific UKU activities they loved. It also asks about what pupils did not enjoy in the UKU meetings, initiatives that UKU teams developed to improve the school, what pupils learned through the UKU program and how the school and classroom have changed since Journeys began.

LARA developed action research tools to measure the level of fidelity of implementation of the EGR methods and generate lessons learned to inform adaptations in EGR programming. The action research tools gather both historical and real-time data at the school. They include the EGR core methodologies action research tool; the remedial instruction action research tool and the intensive coaching action research tool (subdivided into two tools i.e. head teacher coaching event log and school based community of practice event log). The EGR core methodologies action research tool assesses the teacher’s perception of the Teacher Guide usability, level of macro pacing, implementation of lesson plan elements, implementation of core EGR methodologies and tracking of instructional adaptations by the teacher. The remedial instruction research tool tracks the teacher’s perception to remedial instruction, the implementation of group-based instruction as well as in-class assessment. The intensive coaching action research tool tracks teacher’s perception of intensive coaching and keeps a log of head teacher instructional coaching events in addition to school-based community of practice activities. The action research tools are designed to be deployed electronically in order to seamlessly incorporate extra data quality standards and innovations like the Stalling’s classroom observation snapshot (Stallings and Kaskowitz, 1974 ). The project also developed the action research process flow guidelines to guide data collection activities.

The Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) is a diagnostic instrument designed to quickly assess foundational skills for literacy acquisition of pupils in Early Grades of primary school. This diagnostic tool, whose content has been adapted for Uganda and Ugandan local languages, can include a number of subtasks depending on the grade being assessed. EGRA is administered to pupils both in their local language and in English via tablets using a software application (for example Tangerine) designed specifically to collect data on mobile devices. EGRA data can also be gathered manually using paper forms. Each instrument is administered by trained assessors in one-on-one sessions with individual pupils, and requires approximately fifteen minutes. The sub tasks in the English EGRA tools used by LARA include letter sound knowledge, oral passage reading, reading comprehension and vocabulary. LARA administers the English sub-tasks mainly to the P3 and P4 pupils. The subtasks in the local language (Luganda, Runyankore/Rukiga and Runyoro/Rutooro) EGRA tools include orientation to print, letter sound knowledge, segmenting, oral passage reading, reading comprehension, and listening comprehension. Apart from orientation to print that is administered to only P1 pupils, the rest of the local language sub-tasks are administered to P1-P4 pupils. The EGRA tools are accompanied by a pupil stimuli packet used to administer the letter sound knowledge and oral passage reading sub tasks. The subtasks used by LARA were adopted from the EGRA tools developed for the School Health and Reading Program (SHRP). SHRP adapted and vetted the tools to the three languages during a series of weeklong workshops that included researchers, primary school teachers, language board members, Coordinating Center Tutors (CCTs) and MoES staff. The adaptation workshop for Luganda was held in December, 2012, Runyankore/Rukiga tools were adapted in January, 2013 and Runyoro/Rutooro tools were adapted in August 2013. The tools were also piloted in each of the three language areas during the workshops. As part of EGRA data collection, LARA administers supplementary data collection tools to assess pupil context and instructional leadership. The tools also provide important contextual information on the teachers and schools participating in EGRA. These tools include; the pupil context interview, a head teacher interview, teacher interview and school inventory. The following provides a summary of each of the tool. Pupil context interview: Used to gather information on pupils’ preschool attendance, language spoken at home, possessions in the household, and support for reading in the home. Head Teacher Questionnaire: Used to gather information from head teachers regarding their instructional leadership, including their training and education background and their support to the teaching of reading at lower grades. Data from this instrument is used to inform training and targeted corrective actions intended to improve the managerial skills of head teachers and their support to the teaching of reading. Teacher Questionnaire: Used to gather information on the teachers’ education and experience and demographics, support and supervision received, and the availability of teaching materials. The information provides the basis of training and the provision of teaching materials to teachers to help them improve their pedagogical skills. School Inventory Form: Used to gather information on school basic infrastructure (for example water source, latrines and electricity) as well as the presence and use of a school library.

This presentation summarizes the findings from Occasion 2 of the Uganda/Literacy Achievement and Retention Activity longitudinal study of the impact of the Journeys intervention that aims to reduce SRGBV, strengthen student's SEL, and improve school climate. The presentation focuses on qualitative findings. According to these findings, both teacher and pupil social and emotional competencies are strengthened in schools participating in Journeys. Teachers interact with their peers more often than in the past and their relationships with their pupils are more welcoming and positive. The prevalence of corporal punishment has declined. Pupils are free to open up to their teachers, report issues they encounter in school and express themselves more in the classroom. Pupil relationships have improved, resulting in less bullying and fighting on the school grounds.

This report summarizes the findings from a baseline assessment that was conducted in February and March, 2013 to determine the current status of reading achievement in the schools in which the School Health and Reading Program will be working, as well as achievement in “control” schools that will be used as a basis for comparison in assessing the effectiveness of the interventions.

CIES 2018 Presentation, given by Peter Muyingo. Education programming worldwide is beginning to include dedicated activities to support a positive school culture. There is evidence, mostly from high income countries, that a positive school climate is associated with improved learning outcomes and attendance, and reduced violence prevalence. In this presentation we will discuss some of the challenges we faced in adapting a school climate survey from the United States for use in an impact study for a program in Uganda that has a dedicated focus on building a positive school climate. The school climate survey was adapted as one of a variety of instruments to be used in the impact evaluation of the USAID/Uganda funded Literacy Achievement and Retention Activity. This Activity, a working partnership with the Uganda Ministry of Education, focuses on improving early grade reading and retention in 28 districts and 2698 schools in Uganda.