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Children, Youth, Families & Schools, Nebraska
Center for Research on
2012
A Contextual Approach to Social Skills Assessment
in the Peer Group: Who Is the Best Judge?
Kyongboon Kwon
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, kwonk@uwm.edu
Elizabeth Moorman Kim
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Susan M. Sheridan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, ssheridan2@unl.edu
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Kwon, Kyongboon; Kim, Elizabeth Moorman; and Sheridan, Susan M., "A Contextual Approach to Social Skills Assessment in the
Peer Group: Who Is the Best Judge?" (2012). Faculty Publications om CYFS. 101.
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121
In the past decades, theoretical conceptualiza-
tions of children’s social skills and competence have
been more divergent than convergent. In an effort
to integrate theories of social competence, Dirks,
Treat, and Weersing (2007) identied four factors
involved in dening social competence: child, behav-
ior, situation, and judge. Among the four factors,
greatest emphasis has been placed on child and be-
havior in traditional denitions and assessment of
social competence and social skills. That is, some re-
search views children’s social skillfulness as a stable
and internal disposition that a child may or may not
possess, whereas other research views some behav-
iors as fundamentally adept or inept (see Gresham,
1986; McFall, 1982).
In contrast, less emphasis has been placed on
the situation or context in which the behavior takes
place or the relevance of the perspectives of those
who judge the behavior (Dirks et al., 2007; Dirks,
Treat, & Weersing, 2010). The situation and judge
are important to consider because individuals’ social
goals, cognitions, and behaviors are largely shaped
by the interpersonal relationships they form in a
specic context (Reis, Collins, & Berscheid, 2000;
Salmivalli & Peets, 2009). Relatedly, social demands
vary across settings and situations; thus, to be so-
cially successful, a person needs to be able to un-
derstand the demands in the context accurately
and behave accordingly (Sheridan, Hungelmann, &
Maughan, 1999). Thus, determining an individual’s
social skillfulness or decits might be neither con-
clusive nor maximally informative without under-
standing the context where the behaviors occur and
how they are perceived by the people in that context.
Published in School Psychology Quarterly 2012, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 121–133; doi 10.1037/a0028696
Copyright © 2012 American Psychological Association. Used by permission. “This article may not
exactly replicate the nal version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.”
Submitted October 14, 2011; revised April 3, 2012; accepted April 23, 2012; published online June 25, 2012.
A Contextual Approach to Social Skills Assessment in the
Peer Group: Who Is the Best Judge?
Kyongboon Kwon,
1
Elizabeth Moorman Kim,
2
and Susan M. Sheridan
2
1 Department of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
2 Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Corresponding author — Kyongboon Kwon, Enderis 709, PO Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201; email kwonk@uwm.edu
Abstract
Using a contextual approach to social skills assessment in the peer group, this study examined the crite-
rion-related validity of contextually relevant social skills and the incremental validity of peers and teachers
as judges of children’s social skills. Study participants included 342 (180 male and 162 female) students and
their classroom teachers (N = 22) from rural communities. As expected, contextually relevant social skills
were signicantly related to a variety of social status indicators (i.e., likability, peer- and teacher-assessed
popularity, reciprocated friendships, clique centrality) and positive school functioning (i.e., school liking and
academic competence). Peer-assessed social skills, not teacher-assessed social skills, demonstrated consis-
tent incremental validity in predicting various indicators of social status outcomes; peer- and teacher-as-
sessed social skills alike showed incremental validity in predicting positive school functioning. The relation
between contextually relevant social skills and study outcomes did not vary by child gender. Findings are
discussed in terms of the signicance of peers in the assessment of children’s social skills in the peer group
as well as the usefulness of a contextual approach to social skills assessment.
Keywords: a contextual approach, social skills assessment, incremental validity
digitalcommons.unl.edu
122 Kw o n , Ki m , & S h e r i d a n i n Sc h o o l P S y c h o l o g y Qu a r t e r l y 27 ( 20 12 )
A contextual approach to the assessment of so-
cial skills (Sheridan et al., 1999; Warnes, Sheri-
dan, Geske, & Warnes, 2005) appears useful to ll
this gap. Conceptually, a contextual approach to
the assessment of social skills recognizes that the
demands, goals, and rules of social behaviors dif-
fer across situations and participants, and, thus, a
child’s social skills need to be assessed in a context-
specic manner. Further, contextually relevant so-
cial skills should not only be relevant and meaning-
ful to others in that context but also predict socially
important outcomes for children; that is, they should
be socially valid (Gresham, 1986). In this study, we
focused on contextually relevant social skills in
the peer group that have been deemed meaningful
and important by children, parents, and teachers
(Warnes et al., 2005). Our rst goal was to demon-
strate the criterion-related validity of contextually
relevant social skills in the peer group by examin-
ing their predictability of children’s social status in
the peer group and positive school functioning. The
second goal was to examine the incremental validity
of peers and teachers as judges of children’s social
skills in the peer group (i.e., how peers’ and teach-
ers’ social skills assessment adds to the prediction
of outcomes over and above what is predicted by the
other source).
A Contextual Approach to Social Skills
Assessment in the Peer Group
Among the contexts within which children are
a part, the peer group becomes an increasingly im-
portant social context as children move through ele-
mentary school (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006).
To be successful in the peer group, children need to
understand and behave consistently with the im-
plicit and explicit social demands in that context.
When their behaviors are consistent with the peer
group demands, such as prosocial behaviors, chil-
dren are likely to be well accepted by and popu-
lar among peers, whereas they are likely to be re-
jected if their behaviors are contradictory to the peer
groups’ social rules and expectations (Hymel, Vail-
lancourt, McDougall, & Renshaw, 2002). Indeed,
children who display poor social skills tend to be
actively rejected, which leads to further long-term
poor outcomes (Burt, Obradović, Long, & Masten,
2008; Ladd & Troop-Gordon, 2003).
Social skillfulness and competence in the peer
group appears also to have signicant implica-
tions for school outcomes. Intuitively, learning in
school takes place in a highly social environment in
which peers and teachers exchange constant social
interactions (Elliott, Malecki, & Demaray, 2001).
Children who are engaged in aversive social inter-
actions such as aggression have poor academic out-
comes (Perdue, Manzeske, & Estell, 2009; Stipek &
Miles, 2008). In contrast, children who display so-
cial competence, broadly dened, are more engaged
in school cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally
(Perdue et al., 2009) and have higher achievement
(Jennings & DiPrete, 2010; Wentzel, 1991). It is
likely that social skills or lack thereof might facil-
itate or inhibit the processes of learning (Elliott et
al., 2001).
Empirical investigations of a contextual approach
to social skills assessment in the peer group have
been sparse. One exception is research conducted by
Warnes et al. (2005) in which the researchers asked
children, parents, and teachers what social skills
they deemed important in the peer group. Findings
suggested that, despite some intriguing differences
among reporters, they also identied many overlap-
ping behaviors. However, the manner in which those
contextually relevant social skills are related to chil-
dren’s adjustment has not been examined.
Peers and Teachers as Judges
of Children’s Social Skills
Peers and teachers have many opportunities to
“judge” or evaluate children’s social skills in the
peer group. 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). How-
ever, different perceptions between teachers and
peers might also be important to consider given
their distinct social experiences with children. Rel-
ative to peers, teachers interact with students in a
limited context (e.g., instructional settings) and are
Co n t e x t u a l a p p r o a C h t o So C i a l S K i l l S aS S e S S m e n t i n pe e r G r o u p S 123
often indirectly involved in children’s peer interac-
tions. In contrast, peers have more direct contacts
and interactions with other children across multi-
ple situations and settings; thus, they likely have
opportunities to observe other children that are not
necessarily available to teachers. Indeed, there is a
long tradition of involving peers in the assessment
of children’s personal and interpersonal function-
ing. Specically, sociometric assessment, a method
of measuring interpersonal dynamics in a social
group, was developed as early as in the 1930s
(Moreno, 1934). A variant of sociometric assess-
ment in which children’s sociometric status is de-
termined based on “like-most” and “like-least” nom-
inations (Coie, Dodge, & Coppotelli, 1982) has also
been widely used in the past decades. Peers also
serve as valuable informants in the assessment of
children’s positive and negative social characteris-
tics (Masten, Morison, & Pellegrini, 1985).
Given the meaningful differences in the expe-
riences and perceptions between peers and teach-
ers, it is important to understand the incremental
validity of each as evaluators on children’s so-
cial skills. Incremental validity broadly concerns
the added prediction of different measures, meth-
ods, constructs, and informants (Johnston & Mur-
ray, 2003). In terms of the predictability of differ-
ent informants of social behaviors, ndings have
been mixed. For example, a study that involved
preschool children showed that teacher-rated, as
opposed to peer-nominated, popularity was more
strongly related to children’s social competence
(Connolly & Doyle, 1981). In contrast, another
study that involved kindergarten children showed
that peer-nominated popularity and rejection sta-
tus were more strongly related to children’s solitary
play and negative interactions than did teacher-
rated popularity (Landau et al., 1984). In regard
to adolescents’ disruptive behaviors, parent and
teacher reports were more strongly related to later
behavioral outcomes than were self-reports (Loe-
ber, Green, Lahey, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1991).
These ndings together suggest that teachers and
peers might provide neither redundant nor incor-
rect information; rather, their incremental validity
might differ, depending on many factors, including
the type of behaviors assessed, outcome criteria,
and the child’s developmental stage.
This Study
This study builds on a previous study that iden-
tied contextually relevant social behaviors in the
peer group (Warnes et al., 2005). First, we demon-
strated the criterion-related validity of contextu-
ally relevant social skills by examining their pre-
dictability of children’s social status among peers
and their positive school functioning. Tradition-
ally, peer acceptance or sociometric popularity has
been considered among the major criteria to dene
and assess social skills (Gresham, 1986). However,
research has shown other related but distinct as-
pects of social success, including perceived popular-
ity, dyadic friendships, and clique centrality (Gest,
Graham-Bermann, & Hartup, 2001; Parkhurst &
Hopmeyer, 1998). In particular, a number of stud-
ies have shown that perceived popularity, albeit
related, is meaningfully distinct from sociometric
popularity (see Mayeux, Houser, & Dyches, 2011).
Thus, in addition to peer acceptance, we examined
whether socially skilled children also are perceived
as being popular, have more reciprocated friend-
ships, and enjoy high centrality in a smaller unit of
an afliation-based peer group (i.e., clique). In re-
gard to school functioning, we examined the predict-
ability of social skills for academic competence and
positive attitude toward school.
Second, we examined the incremental validity
of peer- and teacher-assessment of children’s social
skills in predicting the study outcomes. Whereas
teachers, parents, and the self have often served
as informants of social skills (Gresham & Elliott,
1990; Matson, Rotatori, & Helsel, 1983; Merrell,
1993), peers have been relatively underused in the
social skills assessment, per se. As discussed previ-
ously, given the frequency, proximity, and scope of
interactions, peers might be a particularly critical
source of information in understanding the associ-
ation between children’s social skills and their sta-
tus in the peer group. We speculated that, although
both teacher- and peer-assessed social skills predict
the outcomes of interest, the incremental validity
of peer assessment of social skills might be particu-
larly pronounced for social status. Findings of incre-
mental validity are believed to shed light on a more
sensitive source of information in children’s social
skills assessment (Hunsley & Meyer, 2003; John-
ston & Murray, 2003).
124 Kw o n , Ki m , & S h e r i d a n i n Sc h o o l P S y c h o l o g y Qu a r t e r l y 27 ( 20 12 )
Finally, as a secondary goal, we explored gen-
der as a moderator of the effect of social skills on
social status and school functioning outcomes. Re-
search suggests that, as compared with boys, girls
display higher levels of social skills (Gresham & El-
liott, 1990; Zakriski, Wright, & Underwood, 2005).
However, it is not clear whether the association be-
tween social skills and child outcomes is moderated
by gender. That is, are social skills more important
for girls than for boys, or vice versa, to enjoy high so-
cial status and positive school functioning? Results
would add to the literature on gender effects on chil-
dren’s social behaviors.
Method
Participants
Participants were 342 (180 male and 162 female)
students and their classroom teachers (N = 22)
from three elementary schools in Midwestern ru-
ral communities. Child participants were students
in Grades 3 (n = 112), 4 (n = 142), and 5 (n = 88),
with a mean age of 9.7 (SD = .9) years. According to
school records, 94% of students were White. For the
22 classroom teachers, all were White and 19 were
female. Their average years of teaching was 17.82
(SD = 10.66).
Procedures
Consent forms with a brief written study descrip-
tion were sent home for parents and were also dis-
tributed to teachers. Active parental consent was
required for a child to participate in the study. The
participating schools were in rural communities,
and the principals noted that students knew one
another in and out of school through the elementary
years and there were many opportunities for them
to interact across classrooms. Thus, we decided to
use grade-based as opposed to classroom-based peer
nominations. Accordingly, the consent rate was de-
termined across classrooms in a grade level. There
were two to ve classrooms per grade, and at least
75% of students in a grade in each school had to give
consent for the grade to participate in this study
(Hamilton, Fuchs, Fuchs, & Roberts, 2000). Among
the 11 units of third through fth grades initially
recruited, six units met the required consent rate,
which ranged from 77% to 91%.
Child assent was obtained and students were
told they were allowed to decline participation in
the study at any time. Condentiality was discussed
before the survey administration, and participants
were provided with an index card to cover their an-
swers. The questionnaires were group administered
for approximately an hour with one research team
member reading aloud the instructions and items
and the other member circulating in the classroom
to provide individual assistance. The grade level ros-
ter for peer nominations included only the names
of students whose parents gave consent, and chil-
dren were instructed to nominate only those stu-
dents who appeared on the roster. Each participat-
ing student had a number linked to his or her name,
and students were asked to write the number iden-
tier on any nomination measure. Students were al-
lowed time to review the rosters prior to completing
the nomination measures. Students whose parents
dissented or failed to return the form were asked to
read or draw quietly at their desks. Teachers com-
pleted the rating forms at their convenience, and
the forms were collected within a week after distri-
bution. A monetary honorarium was provided for
teachers, and stationary incentives were given to
all students in a participating grade.
Study Constructs and Measures
Three broad constructs were of interest in this
study: contextually relevant social skills in the peer
group, social status, and positive school functioning.
Study constructs, measures, and reporters are sum-
marized in Table 1.
Contextually relevant social skills in the
peer group. A total of 25 items (see the Appen-
dix) were adapted from a previous qualitative study
of a contextual approach to the assessment of chil-
dren’s social skills (Warnes et al., 2005). In turn,
children’s social skills were assessed by peer nom-
inations and teacher ratings. Children nominated
up to three peers who t each of the social skills de-
scriptions (e.g., “This person shows other kids that
he or she cares when they are sad,” “This person
keeps other kids’ secrets”). For each child, the num-
ber of nominations he or she received was summed
and standardized (M = 0, SD = 1) by grade level.
Standardization at the grade level controls for the
different number of students who give and receive
nominations across the grade levels. The number
