Validity of social skills measures for assessing social competence in low-status children: A multivariate investigation.

Investigated the validity of the 3 types of measures that are frequently used to measure social competence in children. Data were collected on 40 3rd- and 4th-grade low-sociometric-status Ss using 2 sociometric rating scales, 3 peer nomination measures, and 4 categories of behavioral observations. All of the measures were collected 3 times. Findings support previous claims that rating-scale measures and nomination measures assess different dimensions of sociometric status. Behavioral measures emerged as a separate factor suggesting that these measures assess a dimension of social competence that is independent from popularity or peer acceptance. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)