Preliminary Development and Validation of the Mindful Student Questionnaire

Abstract

Research validating mindfulness-based interventions with youths and in schools is growing, yet research validating measures of youths’ mindfulness in schools has received far less empirical attention. The present study makes the case for and reports on the preliminary development and validation of a new, 15-item, multidimensional, self-report measure of youths’ mindfulness that is closely connected with theory and specifically targeted to school settings: the Mindful Student Questionnaire (MSQ). The MSQ was piloted with a target sample of 278 adolescents in Grades 6 to 8 and subjected to a series of structural and convergent validity analyses. Findings indicated that responses to the MSQ were characterized by a theoretically coherent three-factor latent structure—representing mindful attention, mindful acceptance, and approach and persistence behavior—and that resulting scale scores were characterized by robust internal consistency and positive concurrent associations with criterion indicators of student subjective wellbeing and academic achievement. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.