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

doi:10.1037/A0028696

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Children, Youth, Families & Schools, Nebraska

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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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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) identied four factors

involved in dening social competence: child, behav-

ior, situation, and judge. Among the four factors,

greatest emphasis has been placed on child and be-

havior in traditional denitions 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

specic 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 decits 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

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 signicantly 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 signicance 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-

specic 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 signicant 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 dened, 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 identied 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. Specically, 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-

tied 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 dene

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 afliation-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. Condentiality 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-

tier 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

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

Summary (4 min read)

Introduction