Validity and Reliability of an Adaptation of Personal and Social Skills Scale for K-Students for Use in 2.691 Greek Elementary Students — Oak Academic Publishing
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Validity and Reliability of an Adaptation of Personal and Social Skills Scale for K-Students for Use in 2.691 Greek Elementary Students
Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
,
Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
,
41th Prefecture of Primary Education of Attica, D Directorate of Athens’ Primary Education, Athens, Greece
,
43th Prefecture of Primary Education of Attica, D Directorate of Athens’ Primary Education, Athens, Greece
,
45th Prefecture of Primary Education of Attica, D Directorate of Athens’ Primary Education, Athens, Greece
,
Paedagogical Department, Higher School of Pedagogical and Technological Education, Athens, Greece
,
Centre for Health Services Research, Department of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Medical School of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
,
Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
1 Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
2 Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
3 41th Prefecture of Primary Education of Attica, D Directorate of Athens’ Primary Education, Athens, Greece
4 43th Prefecture of Primary Education of Attica, D Directorate of Athens’ Primary Education, Athens, Greece
5 45th Prefecture of Primary Education of Attica, D Directorate of Athens’ Primary Education, Athens, Greece
6 Paedagogical Department, Higher School of Pedagogical and Technological Education, Athens, Greece
7 Centre for Health Services Research, Department of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Medical School of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
8 Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
The Personal and Social Skills Scale for Preschool K-Students Aged 4 - 6 (Kourmousi & Koutras, in Kourmousi, 2012 ) is a measure comprising eight subscales, designed to measure kindergarten students’ personal and social skills in the school environment. The presented study aimed to adapt it for use in elementary students—also adding two more dimensions, namely “Responsibility Taking” and “Use of Spoken and Written language”—and assess its reliability and validity in a sample of 2.691 first and second graders of Greek elementary schools. The adapted scale’s construct validity was examined initially by an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The adapted scale’s correlation with the Behavioral Academic Self-Esteem (B.A.S.E.) scale and with demographic information was also investigated. Internal consistency reliability was satisfactory with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from 0.82 to 0.92 for all subscales. EFA identified an 11 factor model. The extracted factors explained 70.9% of the total variance. All subscales were found to be significantly and positively correlated with each other. Correlations of self-esteem with all subscales were also significant with the highest ones found with Problem Solving, Concentration of Attention, Participation/Cooperation in class, Friendship skills and Use of Spoken and Written Language. In most questionnaire subscales lower scores were exhibited by boys, by younger students, by those who did not comprehend the spoken language well, by students who received special education support (attended an integration class or received parallel support), by those re-attending the same grade, and by those whose mothers had lower educational level. In conclusion, the Personal and Social Skills Scale for Elementary Students Aged 7 - 9 (PSSS-E), namely the adaptation of the PSSS-K for use in older children, was found to have satisfactory psychometric properties. Therefore, it can be used to evaluate elementary students’ personal and social skills.
KeywordsPersonal and Social SkillsReliabilityValidityExploratory Factor AnalysisStudentsPersonal and Social Skills Scale for Elementary Students
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