Article Title: Development of a Scale for Assessing Emotional and Behavioral Problems of School Children
Author(s): Sadia Saleem and Zahid Mehmood
Institute(s): Clinical Psychology Department, GC University, Lahore
Journal: Pakistan Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2011, Vol. 9, 73-78
Correspondence Address: Sadia Saleem, Clinical Psychology Department, GC University, Lahore. Email: sadia_saleem07@yahoo.com
Abstract
To develop a scale to assess emotional and behavioral problems in school children, a list of 109 most frequently occurring problems after validation by 20 experienced school psychologists was administered to 853 school children (grades 8-10) along with Youth Self Report (YSR; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). Exploratory factor analysis revealed 6 factors of the present scale termed as School Children Problems Scale (SCPS) common with YSR namely Anxiousness, Academic Problems, Aggression, Social Withdrawal, Feeling of Rejection and Psychosomatic Complaints. A significant positive correlation was found between SCPS and two broad band scales of YSR. SCPS was found to be a reliable (test-retest reliability = 0.79 and split half reliability = 0.89) and a valid scale with acceptable psychometric properties.
Keywords: emotional and behavioral problems, school children, reliability, validity
