What Rumble's Quest Measures and Why
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This article provides a detailed look at the research behind Rumble's Quest, including the wellbeing domains, executive function skills, and the evidence base that supports them. For a shorter overview, see What Rumble's Quest Measures.
You can also download this as a PDF: What Rumble's Quest Measures and Why (PDF)
Introduction and Background
Children's sense of wellbeing is central to their cognitive, social, emotional, and psychological development. Wellbeing links to the way children manage their emotions, develop interpersonal skills and relationships, have self-awareness, make socially and personally appropriate decisions, and engage in prosocial activity (CASEL, 2013).
Children who experience strong social and emotional wellbeing are more likely to be motivated to achieve at school, be physically healthy, make rewarding friendships, and experience a range of positive outcomes in later life, including higher rates of employment, lower rates of arrest and drug use, and increased psychological wellbeing (Durlak et al., 2011; Sklad et al., 2012; Jones, Greenberg & Crowley, 2015; Taylor et al., 2017).
Rumble's Quest allows children to report their own feelings as they respond to questions about their life and experience. This enables children's voices to be heard by the adults who make decisions on their behalf, in keeping with Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Dimensions of Wellbeing
Rumble's Quest includes 57 questions that provide an overall profile of social-emotional wellbeing. Children's responses are combined to yield scores across six important domains of child wellbeing:
Positive Identity
Connection to School & Learning
Behavioural Wellbeing
Emotional Wellbeing
Social Wellbeing & Peer Relationships
Positive Support for Development
Positive Identity
Having a positive sense of identity is fundamental to a child's wellbeing and healthy development. Identity includes self-awareness and a well-grounded sense of confidence. It relates to the way we see ourselves and to our sense of worth. It is understood through constructs such as self-concept, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and the belief we can achieve in certain areas (e.g., academics, sport, interpersonal relationships, social interactions) or situations (e.g., at school, at home, on the playground, in community and other social contexts).
When we feel sure of our place in the world and have a positive perception of ourselves, we are more likely to have positive thoughts about the world in general. This, in turn, can influence our motivation and behaviour. A strong sense of self makes us more open to new experiences and willing to take calculated risks, either in the interest of self-improvement and our own success or to achieve positive change on behalf of others. It helps us feel able to participate or give something a go. It helps us step up to challenge even when success is not certain. Positive identity also makes us more likely to persevere and be resilient rather than overwhelmed in the face of setbacks. This perception that we can achieve our goals and improve with effort is linked to what is commonly referred to as a growth mindset.
When children feel sure of themselves, the self-confident drive to achieve and overcome obstacles is often seen in their approach to learning, but it can also extend to the way they build and maintain social relationships. The mindset that feelings of disappointment and frustration can be managed with effort can help children solve interpersonal conflicts and interact with each other in ways that show respect, tolerance, and cooperation (Yeager & Dweck, 2012). This, in turn, supports development of social awareness and a prosocial orientation that includes the capacity to take other's perspectives, feel empathy, and behave in ways that are motivated by compassion, kindness, and concern for other's feelings.
Supporting the development of children's positive identity and self-perception can strengthen the very building blocks of wellbeing: it can motivate belief in their own ability to learn and grow; it can protect against negative feelings that may contribute to anxiety and depression; and it can enhance children's belief in their own value and increase the likelihood they will choose healthy habits and practices. A child's feelings of self-worth and capacity to respect themself can in turn extend to their interpersonal relationships and how they interact with others.
Connection to School & Learning
Connection to school is the extent to which children feel personally accepted, content, and invested in the school environment (e.g., Allen & Bowles, 2012). It is the belief that adults within their school community understand and care about them and their learning, and recognise their effort as much as their achievement.
The quality of children's relationships with teachers, especially in the primary school years, is one of the strongest predictors of learning engagement (Roorda et al., 2011). Research indicates that school cultures that engender attachment to school and growth mindsets can foster children's school success in a variety of ways. Children who demonstrate strong attachment to school have a greater overall sense of psychological wellbeing (Allen & Bowles, 2012), higher academic performance, motivation, and effort, and lower absenteeism (Sanchez, Colon, & Esparza, 2005). They also show more positive attitudes toward learning which in turn can decrease the incidence of fighting, bullying, and vandalism (Wilson & Elliot, 2003).
The Connection to School domain in Rumble's Quest is an indicator of children's engagement and the way they perceive school as a positive place where they feel valued by others, and in turn how they value learning and other people within the school environment.
Self-Regulation: Behavioural and Emotional Wellbeing
Self-regulation refers to how we act in accord with a capacity to keep our thoughts, feelings, and impulses in check. The development of self-regulation has consistently been shown to increase school readiness, classroom behaviour, academic achievement, the quality of friendships, and intrinsic motivation towards schoolwork (Clark & Ladd, 2000). It also contributes to positive long-term developmental outcomes including higher professional attainment, less substance misuse and unlawful behaviour, and better physical and psychological health (Moffitt et al., 2011).
Items relating to self-regulation in Rumble's Quest help children indicate the level of worry, sadness, and problems they experience, as well as their level of exposure to and engagement in conflict and other difficult behaviours. To enhance clarity, Rumble's Quest reports on self-regulation as two separate domains of wellbeing: Behavioural and Emotional.
Behavioural Wellbeing
Behavioural self-regulation involves being aware of your actions and impulses and managing them so you can act in constructive ways. It means consciously managing one's behaviour, overriding immediate impulses by considering potential consequences, and directing actions towards positive outcomes, even when feeling negative emotions.
These skills help children to respond thoughtfully, maintain focus, and to build and maintain healthy relationships. Effective behavioural self-regulation contributes to subjective wellbeing and personal happiness. It also provides a crucial foundation for learning. Children with these skills tend to perform better academically, in part because behavioural self-regulation supports their capacity to focus on what teachers are saying and to follow reasonable instructions. It also supports their capacity to stop and consider other people's perspectives and motives before acting. This means, for example, that they might be able to disagree with their classmates without getting into fights or arguments.
The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) describes responsible decision-making as a core area of competence that refers to "the ability to make caring and constructive choices about personal behaviour and social interactions across diverse situations. This includes the capacity to consider ethical standards and safety concerns, and to evaluate the benefits and consequences of various actions for personal, social, and collective wellbeing."
Emotional Wellbeing
Emotional wellbeing focuses on the way children experience or respond emotionally to situations that may challenge their resilience. It isn't about never having worries. It's about having the capacity, confidence, and when necessary, the support to manage the inevitable everyday challenges, and sometimes more serious problems, that are part of life rather than be overwhelmed by them.
Emotional wellbeing involves being able to recognise, acknowledge, and regulate our feelings, to understand what might cause them, and to have constructive strategies to deal with them. It can increase the likelihood that children will thrive, not just survive.
Evidence suggests that the link between emotional regulation strategies and wellbeing may be mediated by optimism and positive outlook (Sanchez-Sanchez et al., 2025). Optimism, or the tendency to expect positive outcomes in the future, is a protective factor that fosters resilience (Zou et al., 2022) and is known to predict psychological wellbeing (Baranski et al., 2021; Sanjivani & Ramdas, 2024).
Social Wellbeing & Peer Relationships
Social wellbeing refers to the ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with a cross-section of individuals within one's peer group and is underpinned by a wide range of social-emotional competencies (CASEL, 2013). The quality of our interpersonal relationships is enhanced as we develop skills in areas as diverse as impulse control, self-awareness and self-management, social awareness and the capacity to understand another's perspective, empathy, emotional intelligence, communication, and social initiation.
Research consistently shows that children who have higher levels of social confidence experience greater academic and social success as well as more positive outcomes later in life (Durlak, 2011; Sklad, 2012). Although it is acknowledged that peer relationships can be a source of anxiety (Redmond et al., 2016), supportive friendships are an important protective factor for children's wellbeing and mental health (Mitic et al., 2021). Having positive and supportive friendships in childhood reduces stress, enhances self-esteem, and helps with negotiating relationships later in life (Truong & Joshi, 2024).
The Social Wellbeing & Peer Relationships domain of Rumble's Quest links to children's feelings of friendship, acceptance by peers, and opportunities for engaging in social activities that afford them opportunities to hone interpersonal skills.
Positive Support for Development
The nature of support provided by caring adults within the contexts where children grow plays the central role in their development. Growing up in environments that provide positive structure and are enriched through nurturing relationships promotes positive identity, social-emotional resilience, self-efficacy, psychological health, life satisfaction, and facilitates consistent school attendance through increased aspiration and motivation (Scales & Leffert, 2013).
Research shows that secure attachment to even one caring adult can have a profound effect on children's lives, as summed up in the often-cited quote: "Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her" (Urie Bronfenbrenner).
The Positive Support for Development dimension of Rumble's Quest indicates children's sense of being held secure by loving and reliably available caregivers who provide structured family routines, appropriate supervision, enjoyable family activities, and who instil confidence that they are always there to help their children solve problems and realise the aspirations and expectations that they hold for them. This contributes to children's happiness and satisfaction, self-worth, optimism for the future, responsible decision-making, and internalisation of standards for positive behaviour.
Executive Function
Rumble's Quest incorporates three tasks designed to assess executive functions, the cognitive skills known to underpin learning, forward planning, the ability to set and achieve goals, manage emotions, and consider consequences before acting. Executive skills are fundamental to making responsible decisions, getting along with others, and coping with difficult circumstances.
Children's executive skills have been shown to be associated with their mental and physical health, school success, and social, cognitive, and psychological development (Diamond, 2013). Executive functions have also been shown to predict satisfaction in later life through their influence on job success, income, and social relationships (Moffitt et al., 2011).
The Rumble's Quest report provides scores to indicate executive skills relating to:
Working Memory
Cognitive Flexibility
Inhibitory Control
Attention Control & Focus
Working Memory
Working memory allows us to hold relevant information in mind, mentally play with it, and use it to complete a task. For example, recalling the ingredients of a recipe as we do our shopping, or remembering details from a map to navigate a path to a destination.
Working memory underpins academic performance: it aids comprehension by allowing a child to connect the sequence of events to make sense of a story, and helps them complete projects by holding multiple instructions in mind and following them in the right order.
It also underpins social relationships. For example, by helping a child to keep information about what their friend likes and feels in mind as they interact with them, or to remember their role in a game they are playing together.
Cognitive Flexibility
Cognitive flexibility allows us to adjust to change, modify our strategies to match the situation, and cope when routines are disrupted. It allows us to catch our mistakes, make mid-course corrections to fix them, and revise ways of doing things in light of new information. It helps us make alternative choices and plans when the first have been unsuccessful.
Children need to use these skills every day: to find new ways to learn (e.g., approaching a maths problem in different ways until they understand or get it to work), to get along with others (e.g., trying a different strategy to solve a conflict with another child), or to develop creative solutions to big challenges. Without cognitive flexibility we can become stuck and frustrated.
Inhibitory Control
Inhibitory control is the skill that enables us to manage our behaviour, thoughts, and impulses so we can resist urges, temptations, distractions, and habits. It allows us to pause and think before we act. It helps us act less impulsively.
Children rely on this skill when they take turns in a game, wait until called on to answer a question in class, or curb the urge to push back when someone inadvertently bumps into them.
Attention Control & Focus
Attention is a complex cognitive skill that cannot be neatly classified. However, attentional control includes the capacity to ignore distractions and stay on-task, and is linked to selective, focused, and sustained attention. These attention control skills help children respond to the most relevant aspects of a situation and manage concentration to achieve a goal. They help us put aside distractors and maintain focus over time to complete a task.
A Note on Interpreting Executive Function Scores
Each of the three executive function tasks woven into the Rumble's Quest gameplay are based on established neuropsychological assessments of core executive functions.
However, the process of adaptation and translation of methodologies from the highly controlled conditions of clinical settings (e.g., one-on-one administration of measures within extensive test regimes) to the less formal conditions of self-guided game participation in natural environments means that the executive function scores derived from the game cannot be considered diagnostic. Rather, they are intended to indicate performance in a general sense.
Each child's executive function scores are reported against the expected mean values for children of their own age.
Furthermore, deriving single scores for reporting from the complex set of data recorded during gameplay (which includes response speed and accuracy variables) is an intricate process. The work to refine this process will continue as part of the ongoing empirical research that sits behind the measure.
The executive function scores represent executive skills in an approximate way that will remain subject to change over time as the developers pursue their commitment to scientific rigour and continuous quality improvement.
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