The Delaware Social-Emotional Competency Scale (DSECS-S): Evidence of Validity and Reliability

The Delaware Social-Emotional Competency Scale (DSECS-S) was developed to provide schools with a brief, inexpensive, and psychometrically sound self-report scale to assess students’ social-emotional competencies. Confirmatory factor analyses, conducted on a sample of 32,414 students from 126 public...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child indicators research 2018-02, Vol.11 (1), p.137-157
Main Authors: Mantz, Lindsey S., Bear, George G., Yang, Chunyan, Harris, Angela
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic achievement
Child and School Psychology
Cognitive-behavioral factors
Competence
Confirmatory factor analysis
Decision making
Early Childhood Education
Emotional Intelligence
Emotions
Ethnic Groups
Factor Structure
General factor
Interpersonal Competence
Quality of Life Research
Reliability
Secondary schools
Self Management
Self report
Selfmanagement
Social perception
Social Responsibility
Social Sciences
Social skills
Social Work
Students
Validity
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Summary:The Delaware Social-Emotional Competency Scale (DSECS-S) was developed to provide schools with a brief, inexpensive, and psychometrically sound self-report scale to assess students’ social-emotional competencies. Confirmatory factor analyses, conducted on a sample of 32,414 students from 126 public elementary, middle, and high schools in Delaware, showed that a second-order model consisting of four specific factors and one general factor (social-emotional competence) best represented the data. Those four factors are represented in the four subscales of the DSECS-S: Responsible Decision Making, Relationship Skills, Self-Management, and Social Awareness. The scale’s factor structure was shown to be consistent across grade levels (i.e., elementary, middle, and high school), racial–ethnic groups (i.e., White, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, and Multi-racial), and gender. As evidence of the scale’s criterion-related validity, the total social-emotional competency score correlated significantly and positively with students’ self-reported cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and total engagement. At the school level, social-emotional competence correlated positively with school-level academic achievement and negatively with suspensions/expulsions.
ISSN:1874-897X
1874-8988
DOI:10.1007/s12187-016-9427-6