Willingness and Action Measure for Children and Adolescents (WAM-C/A)
The WAM and AFQ were derived from an initial pool of 50 items developed to measure psychological acceptance, conceptualized as an active and multidimensional process involving high or low levels of: willingness to experience private events, values-oriented action, experiential avoidance, and cognitive and emotional fusion. Results of exploratory factor analysis on these initial 50 items supported a three-factor solution. Factor one consisted of 25 items, all negatively worded. Conceptually, this factor seems to tap into experiential avoidance and fusion and is now the Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth (AFQ-Y). Factors two and three were combined into a single measure – the Willingness and Action Measure for Children and Adolescents (WAM-C/A). The WAM can be broken down into a 9-item Action Scale and a 5-item Willingness Scale. The WAM total and subscale scores correlate with each other but not with the AFQ-Y. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Action Scale seems to be driving the results of the WAM. A validation study is currently underway and will help determine which version of the WAM is most useful and psychometrically sound. At this point, we suggest using the 14-item WAM to measure willingness and ability to take action.
We have used the WAM and AFQ with children and adolescents 9-17 years old. Based on results from school studies in middle Tennessee, children report good comprehension of items. Though preliminary, our findings suggest that the WAM may be a stronger predictor of positive outcomes such as quality of life and social effectiveness, whereas the AFQ may be a stronger predictor of negative outcomes such as physical and emotional symptoms. As noted above, the nine Action items seem to be driving the predictive utility of the WAM (Greco, Dew, & Baer, in progress). If you’d like more information regarding these scales, please contact Laurie.Greco@Vanderbilt.Edu.
WAM-C/A and AFQ-Y References:
Greco, L. A., Murrell, A. R., & Coyne, L. W. (2004). The Willingness and Action Measure for Children and Adolescents. Available from the first author at the Division of Adolescent Medicine and Behavioral Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN.
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