Multi-Informant Assessment of Adolescents’ Social–Emotional Skills: Patterns of Agreement and Discrepancy among Teachers, Parents, and Students

Abstract

Objectives: This study explores the patterns of agreement and discrepancy among informants (teachers, parents, and students) in the domains of the Social Emotional Skills Scale Assessment System—Social Skills Scales (SESAS-SS), which is a translation of the Social Skills Improvement System—Rating Scales (SSIS-RS) for use in Spain. Methods: The sample is composed of students, 88 teachers, and 98 parents from Spanish secondary schools. Inter-rater agreements have been assessed, calculating the Pearson correlation coefficients among pairs of raters, effect size indices, and intraclass correlation coefficients at the subscale and total scale level. Results: The convergent validity coefficients were stronger than the divergent ones, with the highest level of agreement between teachers and parents in social skills, particularly for total social skills, engagement, empathy, and communication. The patterns of discrepancies confirmed weaker agreements between teachers and parents in self-control and between parents and students in empathy. Significant differences were also found in students’ estimates depending on gender. Conclusions: The SESAS-SS provides support for previous studies on inter-rater agreements for SS, extending the focus on the degree of agreement in the estimate of dyads of raters when considering the students’ gender.