The Experiences of Social Inclusion Scale (ESIS)
About this good practice
The Experiences of Social Inclusion Scale (ESIS) developed by Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) measures the experience of inclusion. ESIS consists of ten statements that measure the experience of inclusion.
The ten statements map the respondent's feelings of belonging, the meaningfulness of what they do, the capabilities for action, and controllability. The response scale is a five-step scale from “strongly disagree” to “completely agree”. The response alternatives represent a continuum, one extreme of which represents the experience of lack of inclusion and the other the experience of inclusion.
ESIS can be used with differing target groups. It is developed for evaluation of projects and interventions, with groups rather than individuals (not enough research evidence), and in population surveys. The claims are based on a comprehensive understanding of inclusion as belonging and being heard, ability to influence the course of one’s own life and common issues. Scientific validation shows that all the claims belong to one factor, i.e., the experience of inclusion. ESIS has been scientifically validated in its official form, and modifying or applying the claims is not allowed.
In Päijät-Häme, ESIS has been applied, for example, with service user groups in the Diaconia Institute in Lahti and in a regional survey about wellbeing of the adult inhabitants in Päijät-Häme in 2021.
Resources needed
No special training is required to use ESIS, but basic statistical competence is necessary to analyse the results of the scale. There are instructions (in Finnish) for this available online. The development process has been described in the article linked in the section ‘Potential for learning’.
Evidence of success
ESIS has been applied successfully also with so called hard-to-survey populations. The experiences of using ESIS have been promising. It is easily added in surveys, and from the viewpoint of respondents the questionnaire is easy to fill in and encourages reflecting one’s own life and experiences. (source: Leeman 2022, https://www.terveysportti.fi/apps/dtk/tmi/article/tmm00202/search/osall…)
Potential for learning or transfer
ESIS is not bound to specific target groups, and it can be used in versatile ways. ESIS has been developed and validated in Finnish, but it has been translated to, for example, Swedish, English, German, Arabic, and in plain Finnish language. For additional language versions, please contact the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare.
Peer reviewed article: Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Experiences of Social Inclusion Scale (Leemann et al., 2022): https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2021.1985440
If you are interested in applying ESIS, please contact Lars Leemann, [email protected]
Further information
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