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Development and validation of the School Social Judgment Scale for children: Their judgment of the self to foster achievement at school

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Abstract

Positive judgments on the Self are good predictors of academic achievement. It could be useful to benefit from an instrument able to assess how pupils elaborate self-judgments. So far, such a tool does not exist. The purpose of the present study was to develop a self-report measure of social judgment for children at school (the School Social Judgment Scale—SSJS). 660 pupils completed a questionnaire addressing 12 socio-academic behaviors. An exploratory factor analysis highlighted a four-factor structure of social judgment (Assertiveness, Competence, Effort and Agreeability). A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) provided further support for this model, both in terms of factorial and construct validity. Reliability ranged from questionable to good depending on SSJS subscales. Multigroup CFA revealed invariance of the SSJS across gender and showed that boys had higher scores than girls for the assertiveness scale. Overall, the SSJS represents an efficient tool to better understand how social judgment for children works. As such, it could assist professionals of education to develop suitable educational support to assist poorly performing children at school.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Psychology of Cognitions, University of Strasbourg, Goethe 12, 67000, Strasbourg, France

    Bruno Chauvin, Elisabeth Demont & Odile Rohmer

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  1. Bruno Chauvin
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  2. Elisabeth Demont
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Correspondence to Bruno Chauvin.

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Appendix

Appendix

1.1 The School Social Judgment Scale (SSJS) for children

1.1.1 Instructions and items

On the following pages, you will find a series of phrases about you. Please read each phrase and decide how much you agree or disagree with that phrase. Then indicate your response using the following scale:

1 = strongly disagree

2 = disagree

3 = agree

4 = strongly agree

Feel free to answer without cheating. Nobody will know about it.

  1. 1.

    In games, you always decide the rules

  2. 2.

    You do your schoolwork to the best of your ability

  3. 3.

    You like making your friends happy

  4. 4.

    The exercises that you have to do in class seem easy to you

  5. 5.

    You are usually the leader when you play with others

  6. 6.

    You understand quickly what you are asked to do in class

  7. 7.

    Whenever you have candy, you give some to your friends

  8. 8.

    You are often the leader of a group

  9. 9.

    You do everything you can to be a good pupil

  10. 10.

    You understand faster than other pupils in your class

  11. 11.

    You like doing favors to make people happy

  12. 12.

    You are working hard even though it is difficult

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Chauvin, B., Demont, E. & Rohmer, O. Development and validation of the School Social Judgment Scale for children: Their judgment of the self to foster achievement at school. Soc Psychol Educ 21, 585–602 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-018-9430-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-018-9430-5

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