Thomas Sarah, Kågström Anna, Eichas Kyle, Inam Ayesha, Ferrer-Wreder Laura, Eninger Lilianne
Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Department of Public Mental Health, National Institute of Mental Health, Klecany, Czechia.
Front Psychol. 2023 Jan 16;13:1020963. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1020963. eCollection 2022.
Social emotional competence is fundamental to the positive development of children and youth. Accurately understanding and assessing children's social emotional competencies, using psychometrically sound instruments, are essential to global efforts to support children's social emotional learning, academic achievements, and health. This study examined the psychometric properties of a teacher-reported measure of young children's social emotional competence, the Social Competence Scale - Teacher edition (SCS-T), in two samples of children growing up with varied economic resources/conditions, cultural norms, and educational experiences, namely Pakistan ( = 396) and Sweden ( = 309).
Participants were aged 4-6 years old. The study design was cross-sectional.
Using structural equation modelling, bi-factor confirmatory factor analysis models implying shared variance, among all items and domain-specific shared variance, among the prosocial items, emotion regulation items, and academic skills items resulted in good fitting models in each respective sample. Invariance testing across samples revealed a subset of items from each factor structure with partial scalar invariance, whereby five items had equal thresholds and could be comparable across the two samples. Thus, results provided partial support for hypotheses 1, 2, and 3, in that the posited three factor model (H1) was not clearly supported and a bi-factor model evidenced the best fit, among tested models, for both samples. Further, partial scalar invariance (H3) was found for five items out of 25 items, concerning social competence and academic skills. In regards, to the posited research question, the results of Z-tests showed significant ( < 0.001) latent mean differences between the samples. Compared to the Swedish sample, the Pakistani sample was 1.80 units lower on social competence ( = -6.41, < 0.001) and 1.86 units lower on academic skills ( = -7.87, < 0.001). The implications of these findings in light of efforts to promote positive child development in diverse parts of the world are considered.
社会情感能力是儿童和青少年积极发展的基础。使用心理测量学上可靠的工具准确理解和评估儿童的社会情感能力，对于全球支持儿童社会情感学习、学业成就和健康的努力至关重要。本研究在两个成长于不同经济资源/条件、文化规范和教育经历的儿童样本中，即巴基斯坦（n = 396）和瑞典（n = 309），检验了教师报告的幼儿社会情感能力测量工具——社会能力量表教师版（SCS-T）的心理测量特性。
参与者年龄在4至6岁之间。研究设计为横断面研究。
使用结构方程模型，双因素验证性因素分析模型表明，所有项目之间存在共同方差，亲社会项目、情绪调节项目和学业技能项目之间存在特定领域的共同方差，在每个相应样本中都得到了良好拟合的模型。跨样本的不变性检验揭示了每个因素结构中的一个项目子集具有部分标量不变性，其中五个项目具有相等的阈值，并且在两个样本之间具有可比性。因此，结果为假设1、2和3提供了部分支持，即假定的三因素模型（H1）没有得到明确支持，双因素模型在测试模型中对两个样本的拟合效果最佳。此外，在25个项目中的5个项目中发现了部分标量不变性（H3），涉及社会能力和学业技能。关于假定的研究问题，Z检验结果显示样本之间存在显著的（p < 0.001）潜在均值差异。与瑞典样本相比，巴基斯坦样本在社会能力方面低1.80个单位（β = -6.41，p < 0.001），在学业技能方面低1.86个单位（β = -7.87，p < 0.001）。考虑了这些发现在促进世界不同地区儿童积极发展的努力中的意义。
