Impact Analysis Strategies Group

LDI Goes to the Most Authorative Source About Students:
The Students Themselves
The Learning and Development Inventory ( LDI ) is a measure of students' perceptions of their own level of development in several areas that are associated with high academic achievement, positive social adjustment, and success in the school environment. The high school version contains 125 items; the middle school version contains 64 items. LDI is an outgrowth of over 10 years of research at the Yale Child Study Center, and is based on the ideas of James P. Comer, M.D. that

(1) children and adolescents learn best in the context of supportive relationships, especially relationships with caring and sensitive adults, and

(2) children's development has a profound effect on their ability to learn and achieve in school and in any other environment. Comer focuses on “six developmental pathways,” referring to physical, cognitive, language, psychological, social, and ethical development.

The Learning and Development Inventory asks students for their opinions about their own experience of the following: attitudes and skills that help people get good grades and good jobs; school work; communication skills; math skills; coping skills; feeling that they “belong” and have friends in and outside of school; ability to imagine the future and work toward goals; connectedness to adults in and outside school; and feeling safe in school and in the neighborhood. The survey does not ask intrusive questions about health-related or family issues.

LDI Has Wide Applicability to Diverse Populations
LDI was piloted on students enrolled in a school-based academic and counseling intervention in six school districts in New York. The responses of the students to LDI were then matched with those of a similar number of students from around the country. The students were matched on the basis of enrollment in a low-performing school, low academic achievement, age, gender, socioeconomic status, and ethnic background, and/or exhibiting the following characteristics: failed one or more subjects and/or displayed transition problems, attendance problems, disciplinary problems, or family problems. In 2002, a refined version of the survey was administered to two very different school districts. The first district is an urban district in the Northeast of the United States, and the second district is located in a rural town in the Midwest.

The current version of the LDI was developed from the responses of over 3,000 students attending the very same school districts that participated in the 2002 wave of data collection. Given the demographic, social, and economic diversity represented by the total sample, we are confident that the LDI is usable with and applicable to a diverse population of students.

LDI Results Are Both Anonymous and Confidential
As with all of IASG's surveys, questionnaires, and inventories, the personal anonymity of all respondents is assured, as results are considered only in the aggregate. There is no place on the instrument in which to write one's name. Students place their completed survey in the class envelope, which is opened by IASG staff members off-site. Pertinent responses to open-ended questions are retyped by IASG staff members before being submitted to program administrators.

How We Score LDI
LDI has a 5-point Likert response format. This means that respondents are asked to indicate the intensity of their agreement or disagreement with statements that relate to healthy development and academic success. All of the survey items are scored in the positive direction: The higher the score on a survey item or variable, the greater the amount of that quality the respondents assess themselves as having. The highest possible score on a variable is 5.0. The lowest possible score is 1.0. For example, if the cluster of items that has the highest mean score is Friendship , then this means that the students perceive that they have a high level of participation in close friendships with other students. If the items that have the lowest mean relate to Seeking Adult Guidance , then the students are reporting that they do not tend to seek out adults for guidance and do not tend to develop supportive relationships with adults. All survey items are scored so that the higher numbers reflect higher functioning or more positive perceptions. In order to achieve this, some items must be reverse-scored because agreement reflects poorer functioning or more negative perceptions (e.g., “Bullying is a serious problem at our school”). Responses are then averaged to form an Overall score, which ranges from one (1.00) to five (5.00).

LDI Meets The Highest Standards For Reliability
Factor analysis of the students' responses to the second wave of data collection to these items indicated that there were two broad areas into which the items could be classified. The first factor, Overall Development (78 items), reflects students' perceptions of their development in the areas from which the items were drawn. The second factor, Interpersonal Relationship Challenges (20 items) , reflects the degree to which the students perceive they are experiencing problems in their social relationships (with both adults and peers) within the school environment. As mentioned above, both factors are scored such that higher scores reflect better functioning or more favorable perceptions.

Data analysis was conducted on the responses to the survey to discern whether the survey meets statisticians' criteria for being a reliable survey. This was found to be the case: The internal consistency reliability for the high school version of LDI was found to be in the high range (.93). The internal consistency reliability estimate for the Overall Development and Interpersonal Relationship Challenges subscales are .93 and .78, respectively.

The middle school version of the Learning and Development Inventory is an abbreviated survey. The internal consistency reliability for the middle school version was found to be high (.90).

Learning and Development Inventory (LDI): Subscales, Variables, and Definitions
Learning Subscale
Demographic Questions	These items explore the respondent's self-reports gender, age, mobility, plans for formal education after high school, and out-of-school time.
Academic and Professional Competencies	The consistent demonstration of attributes (e.g., work ethic) that contribute to high academic achievement and that employers consider desirable in new employees.
Academic Focus	The self-reported tendency to focus attention on academic work, especially with respect to keeping schoolwork organized.
Academic Persistence	The self-reported tendency to persist in performing strategic behaviors that increase the likelihood of academic success, regardless of obstacles or distractions.
Student Engagement	The self-reported tendency to engage with schooling and motivation for high academic achievement.
Language Skills	The self-reported tendency to feel comfortable and effective using language in both academic and interpersonal settings.
Problem Solving in Math	The self-reported tendency to feel effective when solving challenging problems in mathematics.
Development Subscale
Coping	The self-reported tendency to quickly recover one's healthiest sense of self during and after challenging social and academic situations.
Belonging	The self-reported tendency to feel connection and affiliation with the student body at the school or others in the respondent's general age group.
Future Orientation	The self-reported tendency to conceive of one's own development. The self-reported tendency to devote attention to the future, set goals beyond the immediate time frame, and engage in behaviors designed to reach future goals.
Friendship	The self-reported tendency to perceive that one is intimate with particular persons and that one participates in close friendships with other students.
Seeking Adult Guidance	The self-reported tendency to seek out adults for guidance and to develop supportive relationships with them.
Safety	These items explore the respondent's sense of safety at school and on the way to and from school.
Demographic Questions	These items explore the respondent's self-reports of participation in extracurricular activities, attribution for success in school, ethnicity, and grade point average.

Click here to see examples of LDI charts