Measures of Children's Participation and Enjoyment: CAPE & PAC

The Children's Assessment of Participation and Enjoyment (CAPE) and the Preferences for Activities of Children (PAC) are two companion measures of children's participation. Both are self-report measures of children's participation in recreation and leisure activities outside of mandated school activities.

More Information about the CAPE & PAC

The CAPE is a 55-item questionnaire designed to examine how children and youth participate in everyday activities outside of their school classes. The CAPE provides information about five dimensions of participation. This includes diversity (number of activities done), intensity (frequency of participation measured as a function of the number of possible activities within a category), and enjoyment of activities. It also provides information about the context in which children and youth participate in these activities (i.e., with whom and where they participate). The PAC taps into a sixth dimension of participation, i.e., children's preferences for involvement in each activity.

Both measures contain 55 activities related to children's day-to-day participation in activities outside of the school curriculum. There is a self-administered and interviewer-assisted version of each measure. The CAPE takes approximately 30-45 minutes to complete, depending on the number of activities the child does. The PAC takes generally 15-20 minutes to complete. Both measures are appropriate for children and youth (with and without disabilities) between 6 and 21 years of age.

There are three levels of scoring for the CAPE and PAC: overall participation scores; scores for two domains (formal and informal activities); and scale scores for five types of activities (recreational, active physical, social, skill-based, self-improvement). Scores can be computed for these levels for each of the five dimensions of participation obtained from the CAPE (i.e., diversity, intensity, enjoyment, with whom and where) and for the preference dimension from the PAC.

Reliability and validity of the CAPE and PAC were established using data from a longitudinal study involving 427 children with physical disabilities from across Ontario. Analyses demonstrated sufficient internal consistency, test-retest reliability, content validity, and construct validity. Specific details of these results are presented in the manual and further analyses are being prepared for a journal article.

Cost

Cost information are available on our shop.

Reference for the manual

King, G., Law, M., King, S., Hurley, P., Hanna, S., Kertoy, M., Rosenbaum, P., & Young, N. (2004). Children's Assessment of Participation and Enjoyment (CAPE) and Preferences for Activities of Children (PAC). San Antonio, TX: Harcourt Assessment, Inc.