Assessing Preschool Children’s Social Pretend Play Competence: An Empirical Comparison of Three Different Assessment Methods

Pretend play may be beneficial for young children’s social development. However, empirical results to date are inconsistent and limited, which is partly due to a lack of psychometrically sound measures for children’s social pretend play competence. The current study aimed to compare and validate different assessment methods for children’s social pretend play competence. In total, 64 3- to 4-year-old children participated in the study (age: M = 46.4, SD = 3.8). Assessments were conducted twice, three months apart. Social pretend play competence was assessed using a standardized role play test (Tools of the Play Scale), a social pretend play situation with a peer (Dyadic Pretend Play Assessment), and a teacher report. Children’s Theory of Mind, emotion understanding, and language comprehension were assessed. Educators reported on children’s social-emotional skills. Research Findings: All three instruments showed a good factorial validity, measurement invariance and sensitivity to intra-individual change. A second-order factor of all three methods was identified. The Tools of the Play Scale and the teacher report yielded good criterion validity. The second-order factor showed even better criterion validity: Children with higher social pretend play competence showed higher social-cognitive skills as well as social-emotional skills. Practice or Policy: Limitations and applications of the instruments are discussed.

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Establishing the criterion validity of Zoo U's game-based social emotional skills assessment for school-based outcomes

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology ◽

10.1016/j.appdev.2017.03.001 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 55 ◽

pp. 52-61 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Melissa E. DeRosier ◽

James M. Thomas

Keyword(s):

Criterion Validity ◽

Skills Assessment ◽

Social Emotional ◽

Emotional Skills ◽

School Based

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The Roles of Social-Emotional Skills in Students’ Academic and Life Success: A Multi-Informant, Multi-Cohort Perspective

10.31234/osf.io/ahg8p ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jiesi Guo ◽

Xin Tang ◽

Herb Marsh ◽

Philip David Parker ◽

Geetanjali Basarkod ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Skills ◽

Self Control ◽

Small Subset ◽

Unique Contribution ◽

Rater Agreement ◽

Social Emotional ◽

Predictive Utility ◽

Emotional Skills ◽

Key Skills ◽

Life Success

Although social-emotional skills are more malleable than cognitive skills and have potential benefits for a range of academic and life outcomes, previous studies on the topic have suffered from many issues (e.g., consideration of only a small subset of skills, single-informant and single-cohort design). To address these limitations, this study used a multi-informant (self, teacher, and parent) and multi-cohort (ages 10 and 15 from Finland, N = 5,533) perspective to study the association between social-emotional skills and 20 educational (e.g., school grades and engagement), psychological (e.g., life satisfaction, social relationships), and health outcomes (e.g., eating habits, sleep trouble). Results showed that (a) there was a modest level of inter-rater agreement on social-emotional skills, with the highest agreement between students and parents (mean r = .41); (b) inclusion of multi-informant ratings substantially enhanced the ability of social-emotional skills in predicting outcome variables, with parent- and self-rated skills playing important, unique roles; (c) by modeling skills at the facet-level rather than at the domain-level, we identified the key skills for different outcomes and found significant variation in facets’ predictive utility even within the same domain; (d) although the old cohort showed lower levels of most social-emotional skills (9/15), there were only very minor changes in the inter-rater agreement and predictive utility on outcomes. Overall, Self-Control, Optimism, Trust, and Energy were found among the four most important skills for academic and life success. We further identifed unique contribution of each skill for certain outcomes, which points the way to effective and precise interventions.

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Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS)

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759/a000201 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 31-37 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Paolo Iliceto ◽

Emanuele Fino

Keyword(s):

Second Order ◽

Personality Questionnaire ◽

Factor Analyses ◽

Factor Solution ◽

Confirmatory Factor Analyses ◽

Confirmatory Factor ◽

Beck Hopelessness Scale ◽

Order Factor ◽

Model Invariance ◽

Three Factor

The Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) is an instrument for assessing cognitive thoughts among suicidal persons. Previous studies have identified different factor structures of the BHS. However, results were not conclusive. The aim of this study was to test the factor structure of the BHS in a sample of Italian individuals (N = 509) from the community, and secondarily to investigate correlations between the BHS, depression (Beck Depression Inventory Second Edition), and personality traits (Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire). Following recommendations of previous investigations, we utilized a 5-point response format. We applied a second-order Confirmatory Factor Analyses and tested for the model invariance. The results suggest that besides a single second-order factor, a second-order three-factor solution is also reasonable, in line with Beck’s theorization.

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The Dark Tetrad

Journal of Individual Differences ◽

10.1027/1614-0001/a000179 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 36 (4) ◽

pp. 228-236 ◽

Cited By ~ 45

Author(s):

Janko Međedović ◽

Boban Petrović

Keyword(s):

Personality Traits ◽

Antisocial Behavior ◽

Second Order ◽

The Other ◽

Negative Pole ◽

Latent Space ◽

Order Factor

Abstract. Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy are personality traits understood to be dispositions toward amoral and antisocial behavior. Recent research has suggested that sadism should also be added to this set of traits. In the present study, we tested a hypothesis proposing that these four traits are expressions of one superordinate construct: The Dark Tetrad. Exploration of the latent space of four “dark” traits suggested that the singular second-order factor which represents the Dark Tetrad can be extracted. Analysis has shown that Dark Tetrad traits can be located in the space of basic personality traits, especially on the negative pole of the Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotionality dimensions. We conclude that sadism behaves in a similar manner as the other dark traits, but it cannot be reduced to them. The results support the concept of “Dark Tetrad.”

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More comprehensively measuring quality of life in life-threatening illness: the McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire – Expanded

BMC Palliative Care ◽

10.1186/s12904-019-0473-y ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

S. Robin Cohen ◽

Lara B. Russell ◽

Anne Leis ◽

Javad Shahidi ◽

Pat Porterfield ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Quality Of Life ◽

Second Order ◽

Model Fit ◽

Life Questionnaire ◽

Quality Of Life Questionnaire ◽

Healthcare Environment ◽

Life Threatening Illness ◽

Life Threatening ◽

Order Factor

Abstract Background Domains other than those commonly measured (physical, psychological, social, and sometimes existential/spiritual) are important to the quality of life of people with life-threatening illness. The McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire (MQOL) – Revised measures the four common domains. The aim of this study was to create a psychometrically sound instrument, MQOL – Expanded, to comprehensively measure quality of life by adding to MQOL-Revised the domains of cognition, healthcare, environment, (feeling like a) burden, and possibly, finance. Methods Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on three datasets to ascertain whether seven new items belonged with existing MQOL-Revised domains, whether good model fit was obtained with their addition as five separate domains to MQOL-Revised, and whether a second-order factor representing overall quality of life was present. People with life-threatening illnesses (mainly cancer) or aged > 80 were recruited from 15 healthcare sites in seven Canadian provinces. Settings included: palliative home care and inpatient units; acute care units; oncology outpatient clinics. Results Good model fit was obtained when adding each of the five domains separately to MQOL-Revised and for the nine correlated domains. Fit was acceptable for a second-order factor model. The financial domain was removed because of low importance. The resulting MQOL-Expanded is a 21-item instrument with eight domains (fit of eight correlated domains: Comparative Fit Index = .96; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = .033). Conclusions MQOL-Expanded builds on MQOL-Revised to more comprehensively measure the quality of life of people with life-threatening illness. Our analyses provide validity evidence for the MQOL-Expanded domain and summary scores; the need for further validation research is discussed. Use of MQOL-Expanded will enable a more holistic understanding of the quality of life of people with a life-threatening illness and the impact of treatments and interventions upon it. It will allow for a better understanding of less commonly assessed but important life domains (cognition, healthcare, environment, feeling like a burden) and their relationship to the more commonly assessed domains (physical, psychological, social, existential/spiritual).

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