Measurement of Soft Skills in Education

Abstract

The main purpose of this chapter is to provide a more specific and concrete illustration on ‘what gets measured’ as part of the evolving trend of fostering social emotional skills in education. We have therefore opted for somewhat detailed descriptions of a limited set of instruments that are in the relevant literature, particularly as they are sometimes used as ‘effect measures’ in evaluations of social-emotional learning programs.

Annex

In this Annex we cite items lists, or parts of the items of the instruments, discussed in this chapter. These citations fully depend on published articles, in the public domain, and not on Commercial sources. In each case the reference to the publication is included.

The Basic Empathy Scale

Items of the Basic Empathy Scale (20 items)

• 1. My friends’ emotions don’t affect me much.

• 2. After being with a friend who is sad about something, I usually feel sad.

• 3. I can understand my friend’s happiness when she/he does well at something.

• 4. I get frightened when I watch characters in a good scary movie.

• 5. I get caught up in other people’s feelings easily.

• 6. I find it hard to know when my friends are frightened.

• 7. I don’t become sad when I see other people crying.

• 8. Other people’s feeling don’t bother me at all.

• 9. When someone is feeling ‘down’ I can usually understand how they feel.

• 10. I can usually work out when my friends are scared.

• 11. I often become sad when watching sad things on TV or in films.

• 12. I can often understand how people are feeling even before they tell me.

• 13. Seeing a person who has been angered has no effect on my feelings.

• 14. I can usually work out when people are cheerful.

• 15. I tend to feel scared when I am with friends who are afraid.

• 16. I can usually realize quickly when a friend is angry.

• 17. I often get swept up in my friends’ feelings.

• 18. My friend’s unhappiness doesn’t make me feel anything.

• 19. I am not usually aware of my friends’ feelings.

• 20. I have trouble figuring out when my friends are happy.

Carré, A., Stefaniak, N., D’Ambrosio, F., Bensalah, L., & Besche-Richard, C. (2013). The Basic Empathy Scale in Adults (BES-A): Factor structure of a revised form. Psychological Assessment, 25(3), 679–691. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032297

The Children’s Self-Report Social Skills Scale

• 1. I look others in the face when they talk

• 2. I say thank you when someone does something nice to me

• 3. I kick or hit someone if they make me angry

• 4. I am bossy

• 5. I take turns with others

• 6. I listen to others when they talk

• 7. I share toys and games with others

• 8. I say I’m sorry when I hurt somebody by accident

• 9. When I see others playing a game I would like to play, I ask if I can join them

• 10. I say I’m sorry when I hurt someone on purpose

• 11. I help others when they need help

• 12. I ask others to play

• 13. Others like me and have fun with me

• 14. I make friends easily

• 15. Others do not like me

• 16. Others ask me to play

• 17. When I come over, others ask me to move or give them more space

• 18. I don’t play fairly

• 19. I walk up to others and start conversations

• 20. I speak or interrupt if someone else is talking

• 21. I am too loud when I talk

Danielson, C. K., & Phelps, C. R. (2003). The assessment of children’s social skills through self-report: A potential screening instrument for classroom use. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 35(4), 218–229

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES)

(1) Satisfied with self. (2) I’m not good at all. (3) Have good qualities. (4) I can do things as well as others. (5) I don’t have much to be proud of. (6) I feel useless at times. (7) I am a person of worth. (8) I don’t respect myself. (9) I’m a failure. (10) I have a positive self-attitude.

Bagley, CH., Bolitho, F., and Bertrand, L. (1997) Norms and construct validity of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale in Canadian High School Populations: Implications for Counseling. Canadian Journal of Counseling, Vol. 31;1 82–92

The child and youth resilience measure

(1) I have people I look up to. (2) Getting an education is important to me. (3) My caregiver(s) watch me closely. (4) My caregiver(s) know a lot about me (5) I eat enough most days. (6) I try to finish what I start. (7) I solve problems without drugs or alcohol. (8) I feel supported by my friends. (9) I know where to go to get help. (10) I feel I belong at my school. (11) My caregiver(s) stand(s) by me during difficult times. (12) My friends stand by me during difficult times. (13) I am treated fairly in my community. (14) I am aware of my own strengths. (15) I think it is important to serve my community. (16) I feel safe when I am with my caregiver(s). (17) I have opportunities to develop job skills. (18) I enjoy my caregiver(s)’ cultural and family tradition.

Liebenberg, L., Ulgar, M., & LeBlanc, J.C. (2013) The CYRM-12: A brief measure of resilience. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 104, 131–135

Emotion-regulation rating questionnaire for children and adults (ERQ-CA)

Items loading on cognitive reappraisal:

When I want to feel happier, I think about something different.

When I want to feel less bad (e.g. sad and worried), I think about something different.

When I am worried about something, I make myself think in a way that helps me feel better.

When I want to feel happier about something, I change the way I am thinking about it.

I control my feelings about things by changing the way I think about them.

When I want to feel less bad (e.g. sad, angry or worried) about something, I change the way I think about it.

Items loading on emotion suppression:

I keep my feelings to myself.

When I am feeling happy, I am careful not to show it.

I control my feelings by not showing them.

When I am feeling bad (e.g. sad, angry, worried), I am careful not to show it.

Gullone, E., & Taffe, J. (2012) The emotion regulation questionnaire for children and adolescents (ERQ-CA): A psychometric evaluation. Psychological Assessment, 24(2), 409–417

The Self-Efficacy Teacher Report Scale (SETRS)

• 1. When the student begins something, he/she tries hard to finish it

• 2. The student begins important activities right away

• 3. The student believes that he/she can solve a problem no matter how hard it is

• 4. The student is successful

• 5. Running into problems only makes the student try harder

• 6. The student gets down to work when he/she needs to

• 7. The student tries things that look too hard

• 8. The student views the chance of failing as a challenge

• 9. The student achieves what he/she sets out to do

• 10. The student starts on big projects right away

• 11. The student is certain of his/her ability to be successful

• 12. Failing at something just makes the student try harder

• 13. The student can stick to and complete activities he/she does not like to do

• 14. When problems come up, the student faces them

• 15. The student has a lot of self-confidence

• 16. The student achieves important goals

• 17. The student believes that, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”

• 18. The student is a person who does today what could be put off until tomorrow.

  (cited from Erford, Duncan, & Savin-Murphy, 2010)

Reference

Erford, B. T., Duncan, K., & Savin-Murphy, J. (2010). Brief psychometric analysis of the Self-Efficacy Teacher Report Scale. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and development, 43(2), 79–90.

Multidimensional measure of children’s perception of control MMCPC

The general domain (only the items from the General Scale will be cited).

Unknown control

When good things happen to me often there doesn’t seem to be any reason why.

Often, I can’t understand why good things happen to me.

A lot of times I don’t know why something goes wrong for me.

When something goes wrong for me I usually cannot work out why it happened.

Powerful others control

To get what I want I have to please the people in charge.

If there is something that I want to get, I usually have to please the people in charge to get it

If an adult doesn’t want me to do something I want to do, I probably won’t be able to do it.

I don’t have much chance of doing what I want if adults don’t want me to do it.

Internal control

I can pretty much control what will happen in my life.

I can pretty much decide what will happen in my life.

When I am unsuccessful, it’s usually my own fault.

When I don’t do well at something, it’s usually my own.

Muldoon, O. T., Lowry, R. G., Prentice, G., & Trew, K. (2005). The factor structure of the multidimensional measure of children’s perceptions of control. Personality and Individual Differences, 38(3), 647–657

The short Grit Scale

Consistency of Interest

• 1. I often set a goal but later choose to pursue a different one.

• 5. I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later lost interest.

• 6. I have difficulty maintaining my focus on projects that take more than a few months to complete.

• 2. New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones.

• 4. My interests change from year to year.

• 3. I become interested in new pursuits every few months

Perseverance of Effort

• 9. I finish whatever I begin.

• 10. Setbacks don’t discourage me.

• 12. I am diligent.

• 11. I am a hard worker.

• 7. I have achieved a goal that took years of work.

• 8. I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge

Duckworth, A. L., & Quinn, P. D. (2009). Development and validation of the short grit scale (Grit–S). Journal of Personality Assessment, 91(2), 166–174

How I feel questionnaire

There are 30 items, answering categories: “Children are asked to rate on a 5-point scale (1 = not at all true of me, 2 = a little true of me, 3 = somewhat true of me, 4 = pretty true of me, 5 = very true of me) the extent to which the statements described their emotion experience over the previous 3 months”

Item stems:

F1: Positive Emotion

• 14. Excited strong.

• 29. Excited powerful.

• 19. Excited often.

• 4. Excited all the time

• 26. Happy strong

• 11. Happy powerful.

• 1. Happy often.

• 16. Happy all the time.

F2: Negative Emotion

• 13. Mad often.

• 17. Sad powerful

• 2. Sad strong.

• 7. Sad often.

• 23. Mad powerful.

• 28. Mad all the time.

• 8. Mad strong.

• 22. Sad all the time.

• 25. Scared often.

• 20. Scared strong.

• 5. Scared powerful.

• 10. Scared all the time.

F3: Emotion Control (EC)

• 18. Mad intensity.

• 27. Sad frequency.

• 12. Sad intensity.

• 15. Scared frequency.

• 30. Scared intensity.

• 24. Excited intensity.

• 73. Mad frequency.

• 69. Excited frequency.

• 21. Happy frequency.

• 46. Happy intensity.

Ciucci, E., Baroncelli, A., Grazzani, I., Ornaghi, V., & Caprin, C. (2016). Emotional Arousal and Regulation: Further Evidence of the Validity of the “How I Feel” Questionnaire for Use with School‐Age Children. Journal of School Health, 86(3), 195–203

The expression and emotion scale for children (EESC)

Children respond to items using a 5-point Likert scale with scores of 1 (not at all true), 2 (a little true), 3 (somewhat true), 4(very true), and 5 (extremely true) to indicate how well each item describes their experience with these expressive difficulties.

Poor awareness factor

• 8. When I feel upset, I do not know how to talk about it.

• 15. I often do not know why I am angry.

• 11. Sometimes I just don’t have words to describe how I feel.

• 9. I often do not know how I am feeling.

• 10. People tell me I should talk about my feelings more often.

• 3. When something bad happens, I feel like exploding.

• 14. I know I should show my feelings, but it is too hard.

• 5. I have feelings that I can’t figure out.

Expressive reluctance factor

• 1. I prefer to keep my feelings to myself.

• 4. I don’t show how I really feel in order not to hurt others’ feelings.

• 2. I do not like to talk about how I feel.

• 12. When I’m sad, I try not to show it.

• 7. When I get upset, I am afraid to show it.

• 6. I usually do not talk to people until they talk to me first.

• 16. It is hard for me to show how I feel about somebody.

• 13. Other people don’t like it when you show how you really feel.

Penza-Clyve, S., & Zeman, J. (2002). Initial validation of the emotion expression scale for children (EESC). Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 31(4), 540–547

The Social Skills Rating System (SSRS)

Given the complexity of the SSRS we refrain from seeking to cite full item sets, and just cite exemplary items in the Chapter’s main text.

Key reference: Gresham, F. M., & Elliott, S. N. (1990). The Social Skills Rating System. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service

The Emotional Awareness Scale for Children (LEAS-C)

Given the complexity of the LEAS-C we refrain from seeking to cite full item sets, and just cite exemplary items in the Chapter’s main text.

Key reference: Bajgar, J., Ciarrochi, L., Lane, R., and Deane, F.P. (2005). Development of the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale for Children (LEAS-C). British Journal of Developmental Psychology 23:569–86. https://doi.org/10.1348/026151005x35417

The Empathy Index for Children and Adolescents (IECA) (Bryant’s Empathy Index)

Statement Yes/No

• 1. It makes me sad to see a girl who can’t find anyone to play with (+)

• 2. People who kiss and hug in public are silly (−)

• 3. Boys who cry because they are happy are silly (−)

• 4. I really like to watch people open presents, even when I don’t get a present myself (+)

• 5. Seeing a boy who is crying makes me feel like crying (+)

• 6. I get upset when I see a girl being hurt (+)

• 7. Even when I don’t know why someone is laughing, I laugh too (+)

• 8. Sometimes I cry when I watch TV (+)

• 9. Girls who cry because they are happy are silly (−)

• 10. It’s hard for me to see why someone else gets upset (−)

• 11. I get upset when I see an animal being hurt (+)

• 12. It makes me sad to see a boy who can’t find anyone to play with (+)

• 13. Some songs make me so sad I feel like crying (+)

• 14. I get upset when I see a boy being hurt (+)1

• 15. Grown-ups sometimes cry, even when they have nothing to be sad about (−)

• 16. It’s silly to treat dogs and cats as though they have feelings like people (−)

• 17. I get mad when I see a classmate pretending to need help from the teacher all the time (−)

• 18. Kids who have no friends probably don’t want any (−)

• 19. Seeing a girl who is crying makes me feel like crying (+)

• 20. I think it is funny that some people cry during a sad movie or while reading a sad book (−)

• 21. I am able to eat all my cookies even when I see some-one looking at me wanting one (−)

• 22. I don’t feel upset when I see a classmate being punished by a teacher for not obeying school rules (−)

References:

Key reference: De Wied, M., Maas, C., Van Goozen, S., Vermande, M., Engels, R., Meeus, W., Matthys, W., and Goudena, P. (2007). Bryant’s Empathy Index: A Closer Examination of its Internal Structure. European Journal of Psychological Assessment 23:99–104.

Other reference: Goossens et al.: Implementation of PATHS Through Dutch Municipal Health Services. IJCV: Vol. 6 (2) 2012, pp. 234–248

Kidcope-Child Version

Coping strategies in the Kidscope-Child Version (source: National Mentoring Resource Center)

1. I just tried to forget it

2. I did something like watch TV or played a game to forget it

3. I stayed by myself

4. I kept quiet about the problem

5. I tried to see the good side of things

6. I blamed myself for causing the problem

7. I blamed someone else for causing the problem

8. I tried to fix the problem by thinking of answers

9. I tried to fix the problem by doing something or talking to someone

10. I yelled, screamed, or got mad

11. I tried to calm myself down

12. I wished the problem had never happened

13. I wished I could make things different

14. I tried to feel better by spending time with others like family, grownups, or friends

15. I didn’t do anything because the problem couldn’t be fixed

Positive or adaptive strategies are measured by items 5, 8, 9, 11, and 14; negative or maladaptive strategies are measured by items 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 12, 13, and 15. Using this approach, the total number of strategies used within a given category (e.g., positive) can be computed, and efficacy can be computed as the average of the ratings of helpfulness (0 for Not at all, 1 for A little and 2 for A lot) for those strategies endorsed.

References: The National Mentoring Resource Center, Adaptive coping with stress. undated blog, https://nationalmentoringresourcecenter.org/index.php/toolkit/item/245-adaptive-coping-with-stress.html

Spirito, A., Stark, L.J., & Williams, C. (1988). Development of a brief coping checklist for use with pediatric populations. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 13(4), 555–574

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)

Complete scale, cited from Goodman (1999), appendix, p. 586.

Childs Name Date of Birth. Signature To be completed by Teacher, parent, Other

Considerate of other people’s feelings

Restless, overactive, cannot stay still for long

Often complains of headaches, stomach-aches or sickness

Shares readily with other children (treats, toys, pencils etc.)

Often has temper tantrums or hot tempers

Rather solitary, tends to play alone

Generally obedient, usually does what adults request

Many worries, often seems worried

Helpful if someone is hurt, upset or feeling ill

Constantly fidgeting or squirming

Has at least one good friend

Often fights with other children or bullies them

Often unhappy, down-hearted or tearful

Generally liked by other children

Easily distracted, concentration wanders

Nervous or clingy in new situations, easily loses confidence

Kind to younger children

Often lies or cheats

Picked on or bullied by other children

Often volunteers to help others (parents, teachers, other children)

Thinks things out before acting

Steals from home, school or elsewhere

Gets on better with adults than with other children

Many fears, easily scared

Sees tasks through to the end, good attention span

Key reference: Goodman, R. (1997). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 38(5), 581–586.

The Teacher Child Rating Scale (T-CRS)

Items

Examples of items per factor:

Acting Out

Disruptive in class

Constantly seeks attention

Shy-Anxious

Withdrawn

Unhappy, depressed, sad

Learning

Underachieving

Poorly motivated to achieve

Frustration Tolerance

Well behaved in school

Well-liked by classmates

Assertive Social Skills

Defends own views under group pressure

Comfortable as a leader

Task orientation

Completes work

Well organized

Key reference: Hightower, A. D., Work, W. C., Cowen, E. C., Lotyczewski, B. S., Spinwell, A. P., Guare, J. C., and Rohrbeck, C. A. (1986). The Teacher Child Rating Scale: A brief objective measure of elementary children’s school problem behaviors and competencies. School Psychology Review, 15(3), 393 409.

Flay, B.R., Adcock, A., Vuchinich, S., & Beets, M. (2006). Progress report of the randomized trial of Positive Action in Hawaii: End of third year of intervention. Retrieved from Research Gate website: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224942204.