Attitudes and Values Questionnaire (AVQ)

This article includes information on the following:

• Questionnaire overview
• Understanding the AVQ domains
• Administering the questionnaire
• Generating reports

Questionnaire overview

Developed by ACER, with the support of John XXIII College in Perth, the Attitudes and Values Questionnaire (AVQ) is a tool to gather meaningful data on secondary school students’ social, moral and spiritual development.

On the basis of discussions with senior staff and members of the College Council, Professor Geoff Masters and Margaret Forster of ACER, drafted a series of statements relating to seven domains. The draft statements were trial tested and a questionnaire developed.

In subsequent years the questionnaire was administered to John XXIII College students in Years 8 and 12 as well as to ex-students of the College five and ten years after graduation. Over the next decade the AVQ was a popular choice for Australian schools interested in testing the social and emotional capacity of students.

The AVQ provides an opportunity for schools to formally measure, and report to the school community, how well they are upholding their mission statements. The AVQ assesses the school’s capacity to develop moral, ethical, socially responsible students who can accept responsibility for their decisions and their place in the world.

After a recent review of data collected since the original design in 1997, the AVQ can now be undertaken in 15 minutes and has fewer than 40 questions. The new release of the AVQ is available on ACER’s online assessment and reporting system (OARS) for the first time allowing results to be available immediately after students have completed the survey.

Understanding the AVQ domains

The questionnaire addresses the following social domains. A higher percentage agreement with any domains indicates greater tendency to exhibit typical behaviours and feelings in keeping with the domain.

Form A focuses solely on social domains:

• Conscience – students feel remorse after an event, have a principled awareness and perform actions that are motivated by a concern for others.
• Compassion – Students have concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others and act selflessly.
• Emotional growth – students have a sense of their own emotional state and an emotional awareness and maturity. They have a degree of self-reflection in terms of their own emotions.
• Social growth – students have a social awareness and willingness to engage socially, inclusively and openly.
• Service to others – students exhibit altruistic attributes, have a tendency to want to help others and a concern for others happiness.

Form B includes the social domains plus an additional focus on students' commitment to their God:

• Commitment to God – students exhibit belief in God's love and purpose for them, find strength through prayer, and allow their faith to guide their actions.

This domain is suitable for schools of many religious denominations.

Information gathered from this survey may assist in identifying areas for further concentration of resources, may highlight areas of success in current religious education classes, and may show differences between students who have attended religious primary schools and non-religious primary schools prior to entry at secondary school.

Form C includes the social domains, a domain related to students' commitment to their God, plus an additional focus on students' commitment to Jesus:

• Commitment to Jesus – students exhibit belief in the relevance of the teachings of Jesus and the Bible, belief in the gospels, and feeling the presence of Jesus.

This version allows Christian schools to measure the extent to which their mission statements and Christian ethos is being reflected by their students. Information gathered from this survey may assist in identifying areas for further concentration of resources, may highlight areas of success in current religious education classes, and may show differences between students who have attended religious primary schools and non-religious primary schools prior to entry at secondary school.

Administering the questionnaire

Administration Instructions - AVQ

Prior to administering the questionnaire to students, teachers should download or print a list of student login details as well as the administration instructions. It is recommended that the school’s unique account URL is saved as a shortcut or link on students’ devices or on the school intranet for easy access.

Form A comprises 26 statements and should take students about 10 minutes to complete.

Forms B and C contain 33 and 39 statements respectively and should take students about 15 minutes to complete.

Generating reports

Note

The Attitudes and Values Questionnaire is a confidential survey and is not designed to report individual student responses. In order to maintain the anonymity of student responses, AVQ reports require a minimum of 10 responses per gender and year level. Similarly, reports will not generate if there are multiple responses from the same students within the specified report date range. If you receive an error message, try narrowing the date range of your report to cover only one survey period.

Follow the steps below to generate AVQ reports:

1. Click Students
2. Select your required students
   • Click the tick next to students' names to select your students one at a time, or
   • Filter your list to view a specific group and then click Select all x students
3. Click Generate report
4. Select Attitudes and Values Questionnaire
5. Select Survey Results
6. Select the required Form from the drop-down menu
7. Specify the required date range for the report
8. Click Generate report
9. Click View report