Peer and Teacher Sociometrics for Preschool Children: Cross-Informant Concordance, Temporal Stability, and Reliability

Abstract

Cross-informant concordance (peers vs. teachers), temporal stability, and reliability associated with sociometrics were systematically examined in a sample of 84 preschoolers (M ϭ 4.5 years). Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that parallel forms of teacher and peer sociometrics measured overlapping and unique aspects of peer popularity. Reliability, a characteristic of a measurement instrument (sociometric assessment), was differentiated from stability, which is associated with the phenomenon or behavior being measured (children's peer popularity). Teachermeasured popularity was highly stable over an 8-week period, while peer-measured popularity showed lower stability. High reliability was found for both teacher and peer sociometrics. Child age and classroom participation rates did not alter the pattern or magnitude of the modeled relationships.Acquiring social competence and establishing positive peer relationships are important tasks in normal individual development (Hymel, Vaillancourt, McDougall, & Renshaw, in press). Research indicates that poor social competence and peer rejection are associated with concurrent

A contextual approach to social skills assessment in the peer group: Who is the best judge?

“…Given that both peers and teachers share some common environments in which they observe a target child's behavior (e.g., classroom, lunchroom), they might show some agreement in their perceptions of the child's behaviors. In fact, research has shown moderate consensus between peers and teachers in their evaluations of children's social status (Landau, Milich, & Whitten, 1984;Wu, Hart, Draper, & Olsen, 2001) and academic skills (Gest, Domitrovich, & Welsh, 2005). However, different perceptions between teachers and peers might also be important to consider given their distinct social experiences with children.…”

Stability of Three Methods for Two-Dimensional Sociometric Status Determination Based on the Procedure of Asher, Singleton, Tinsley and Hymel

“…In their study of children of preschool age, Wu et al (2001) did distinguish between stability and reliability. However, they confined themselves to establishing the reliability of variables indicating the concept popularity, but did not report correlations between two consecutive sociometric classifications.…”

“…The composition of subgroups of the total research sample could have been rearranged (for example, class groups within a school). But social preferences may also easily change within fixed subgroups, particularly when young children are involved (Wu, Hart, Draper, & Olsen, 2001).…”

“…Moreover, few researchers will view peer-assessed sociometric status as a stable trait and stability coefficients observed within a study as easily generalizable to larger populations. Nevertheless, Wu et al (2001) rightly note that to date, in the sociometric literature, little attention has been paid to the difference between measurement reliability and stability. Their complaint applies especially to studies that examine the quality of different procedures (e.g., Frederickson & Furnham, 1998;Terry & Coie, 1991), and that typically compare κ values suggesting that the highest value corresponds to a superior performance.…”

A concordância entre medidas sociométricas e a estabilidade dos estatutos sociais em crianças de idade pré-escolar

“…RESUMO O conceito de sociometria, introduzido por Moreno (1934Moreno ( /1953, refere-se a um conjunto de métodos que permitem identificar, simultaneamente, a estrutura social dos grupos e a posição relativa que cada indivíduo ocupa, na referida estrutura. Não obstante a sua utilização recorrente, em diversos campos da psicologia, são poucos os estudos (e.g., Jiang & Cillessen, 2005;Wasik, 1987;Wu, Hart, Draper, & Olsen, 2001) que, durante o período correspondente ao pré-escolar (i.e., entre os 3 e os 5 anos de idade), avaliam a questões da concordância entre as avaliações obtidas através de diferentes medidas, sendo mais comum que se considere a estabilidade de cada medida, de modo a analisar, por exemplo, a evolução das classificações sociométricas (i.e., estatuto no grupo de pares). No presente estudo, foram entrevistados 263 crianças, 140 do sexo feminino e 123 do sexo masculino, distribuídas por 11 grupos (3 de 3 anos, 4 de 4 anos e 4 de 5 anos de idade), utilizando três técnicas sociométricas diferentes: (1) nomeações -3 escolhas positivas, 3 negativas (2) escala de apreciação (rating scale) -cada criança foi classificada entre 1 (não gosta muito de brincar) e 3 (gosta muito de brincar); e (3) comparação entre pares (paired comparisons) -escolha de uma entre duas crianças, pelo critério gosta mais de brincar, em todas as díades possíveis no grupo.…”