Temporal Stability and Internal Reliability of Measures of Children's Social Skill

According to recent reviews of the literature, interest in assessment of social skills of children has been growing (Michelson & Wood, 1980; Michelson, Foster, & Ritchey, in press). However, requisite psychometric properties of commonly used measures have rarely been reported. To remedy this relative vacuum 90 elementary school children (M = 13 yr.) were given three measures and retested 2 wk. later. The Children's Assertive Behavior Scale (Michelson & Wood, in press), the Rathus Scale, revised for children, and peer sociometric ratings (Michelson, et al., in press) gave temporal stabilities of .66, .61, and .74, respectively. Moreover, the internal consistencies of the Children's Assertive Behavior Scale and the Rathus scale were identified as .80 and .20, respectively. Recognizing the direct relationship of reliability to validiry, clinicians and researchers need to exercise caution in using the Rathus for children because it was designed originally for adults. However, the Children's Assertive Behavior Scale shows acceptable preliminary psychometric properties for trial in investigations of outcome. Likewise, the stability of peer ratings over brief periods warrants its consideration as a concurrent device for assessment

Assertiveness · Developmental psychology · Reliability (semiconductor · Scale (ratio · Autism Spectrum Disorder Research · Behavioral and Psychological Studies · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development · Clinical Psychology · Psychology · Social Psychology