Hope & Love Measure

HOPE & LOVE MEASURE

Measuring the experience of God's love

INTRODUCTION

A Groundbreaking Global Research Project

The Measuring the Experience of God’s Love in Children initiative is a first of its kind research effort to understand how children, across different cultures and faiths, experience and understand the love of God.

Developed by World Vision in collaboration with theologians, psychologists, and researchers from Harvard University, Duke University, and Claremont Graduate University, this project affirms that children are not just passive recipients of care, but moral and spiritual beings whose capacity to feel loved and hopeful is foundational to their well-being.

At the heart of the study is a scientifically validated tool that is rooted in Christian theology to assess spiritual flourishing in children, expressed through hope, a sign of God’s love made tangible through relationships, meaning, and trust.

Measuring the Experience of God’s Love Summary Brochure

Measuring the Experience of God’s Love Special Digest

Measuring the Experience of God’s Love Research Methods, and Findings Report

Ethics and Oversight

All research protocols were reviewed and approved by the University of East London Institutional Review Board (IRB) and additional ethical review boards in participating institutions as required. The study followed international best practices for child protection, informed consent, and data privacy, ensuring that the voices of children were engaged with the utmost care and respect.

SIX SIGNS OF HOPE

Compassion

A hopeful child is compassionate and aware of the needs of others, seeks to show kindness, and appreciates when people show compassion to them 

Purpose

A hopeful child is expressive and an active agent in community life, constantly learning and pursuing their dreams and aspirations. 

Resilience

A hopeful child has both the inner strength and the capacity to draw strength from relationships, to face life challenges with courage. They learn and grow stronger from experience. 

Joy

A hopeful child feels joy in simple experiences and has a grateful heart, which allows them to celebrate the kindness of others. 

Wisdom

A hopeful child understands that they have value as a person, reflects on what they are learning through life experiences, sees the wisdom in demonstrating strong character, and tries to act accordingly. 

Personal faith

Writing is a medium of communication that represents language through the inscription of A hopeful child trusts in God, has a relationship with Jesus, and sees the work of the Holy Spirit, and finds meaning in spiritual practices and rituals.  (For use in Christian contexts).

HOW HOPE MULTIPLIES WITH WORLD VISION

Triune God

Source of love and care for others

People are made in the image of God, with worth, value, and a special purpose.
God loves all of creation. This is told in the big story of the Bible and shown most clearly in the life and work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus teaches us the most important rule: love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

Human relationships

Experience of love

God’s love shapes how we treat each other. When people experience genuine love, it helps them feel they belong and are cared for. This care can be for things we don’t see, like support for emotions, or things we do see: water, food, and physical safety.
Love also gives us hope. We see hope through the people in our lives, our parents, friends, caregivers, and communities. When we watch others be kind and caring, hope grows within us.

Personal transformation for all

Flourishing of hope

As God’s love transforms, children and carers grow in hope and begin to believe:

I am never alone. God is always with me.
My life has value and meaning.
I am loved deeply, no matter what.
I can love and respect myself and others.
Good will win in the end, even when life is hard.
I can help make the world more like God wants, full of love, fairness, and peace.
I can live with hope today, even when things seem hopeless.

Outward expression

Signs of hope

As Hope grows people begin to show the signs of hope in their lives: compassion, resilience, joy, purpose, wisdom, personal faith which leads to participation.

Active participation

Multiplication of hope

Taking part in spreading love, fairness, peace, and care for others
Helping to make things right in a broken world
Becoming people who help make good changes
Making places where love and fairness can grow

GLOBAL INSIGHTS

4,600+ children surveyed

8 countries on 4 continents (Albania, Bolivia, Iraq, Lesotho, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Uganda).

40% of children surveyed demonstrated strong signs of hope with regional results highlighting unique strengths and challenges, and providing insights to guide culturally tailored interventions.

High reliability (α = 0.80–0.92) and cross-cultural applicability

Why It Matters

This research gives us a window into how our work affects a child’s inner world- something completely unique in our industry and with this data we can adjust our program implementation strategies and approaches to deepen the durability of our impact. What we do and how we do it matter and so this is an area where our faith-based identity drives deeper program effectiveness.

This tool gives World Vision and its partners a way to measure and support children’s spiritual well-being. It helps identify not only challenges but also strengths that can be nurtured.

By focusing on love and hope, the tool shifts the paradigm, from seeing children as vulnerable recipients of aid to recognizing them as spiritual agents of transformation.

View Country Profiles & Findings

METHODOLOGY

How the research was built

Scientific rigor

The final tool was subjected to a rigorous process of psychometric validation, including exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, with over 4,600 children across eight countries: Albania, Bolivia, Iraq, Lesotho, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Uganda.

The TRAPD method (Translation, Review, Adjudication, Pretesting, and Documentation) was used to ensure semantic and conceptual equivalence across languages and cultures. Reliability coefficients across domains ranged from α = 0.80–0.92, confirming the robustness of the scale.

PHASE I

Listening to the voices of children

OBJECTIVE	OUTPUT
To ensure the personal insights and lived realities of children form the foundation of the new measure To position children as experts on their own experiences of hope and God’s love	11 themes, with datasets, supporting quotes, and summaries from all countries, to inform Phase II Phase II - a second analysis of the dataset against the six signs to validate their relevance confirming that the majority of children mentioned each sign

OBJECTIVE

OUTPUT

To ensure the personal insights and lived realities of children form the foundation of the new measure

To position children as experts on their own experiences of hope and God’s love

11 themes, with datasets, supporting quotes, and summaries from all countries, to inform Phase II

Phase II - a second analysis of the dataset against the six signs to validate their relevance confirming that the majority of children mentioned each sign

PHASE II

Establish a theological framework rooted in Christianity

OBJECTIVE	OUTPUT
To build a theologically robust framework as the basis for an empirically sound and theologically robust measure. To identify common ground among diverse Christian perspectives	Theologically grounded framework and six signs of hope

OBJECTIVE

OUTPUT

To build a theologically robust framework as the basis for an empirically sound and theologically robust measure.

To identify common ground among diverse Christian perspectives

Theologically grounded framework and six signs of hope

PHASE III

Develop approach to measure signs of hope

OBJECTIVE	OUTPUT
To create specific measurement tools that reflect the diverse ways children experience God’s love To ensure items resonate with children from a wide range of cultural, denominational, and geographical backgrounds	Proposed items for each of the six themes

OBJECTIVE

OUTPUT

To create specific measurement tools that reflect the diverse ways children experience God’s love

To ensure items resonate with children from a wide range of cultural, denominational, and geographical backgrounds

Proposed items for each of the six themes

PHASE IV

Validate and select the final measurement approach

OBJECTIVE	OUTPUT
To ensure the final set of items robustly captured children’s experiences of God’s love and could be confidently used in global programming	A validated robust survey instrument that provides an empirically robust foundation for future research

Research Team

This global initiative was led by an interdisciplinary team of scholars and practitioners, including:

PROJECT LEADS

Jennifer Wortham, Dr.PH, Research Associate, Human Flourishing Program, Harvard University; Associate Research Professor, Claremont Graduate University.

Kathryn Kraft, Ph.D, Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences, University of East London, and Senior Research Advisor for Faith and Development, World Vision International

Ariola Kallciu, Senior Advisor, Monitoring & Evaluation, World Vision International

RESEARCH TEAM

Harold Koenig, MD, MPH., Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Associate Professor of Medicine, Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, and Director, Center for Theology, Spirituality and Health Duke University

Christina Hinton, Ph.D., Founder and CEO, Research Schools International; Research Associate, Human Flourishing Program, Harvard University.

R. Noah Padgett, Ph.D., Research Associate, Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University

Daniel Martin, M.S., Senior Researcher, Evaluation Center, Claremont Graduate University

Theological Advisors

The theological foundation of the study was developed by a working group of leading theologians, with expertise in children’s spirituality from diverse Christian traditions and regions. Key contributors include:

Rev. Dr. Rohan P. Gideon, Church of South India

Dr. Tim J. Davy, Evangelical Church and Interdenominational Seminary, United Kingdom

Dr. Rosalind Lim, Tan Malaysian Baptist Church

Rev. Dr. Šimo Maršić, Catholic Church, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Rev. Dr. Jason Foster, Orthodox Church in America

Rev. Dr. Seyram B. Amenyedzi, Global Evangelical Church, Ghana, and Germany

Fr. Lenin Cruz, Catholic Arquidiócesis de Tegucigalpa, Honduras (in an advisory role, joining the group officially in 2024)

This team engaged in a yearlong reflective and consensus-driven process to articulate a theology of hope rooted in God’s love and human relationship, forming the theological bedrock for the entire study.