Temporal and cross-situational stability of children's social and play behavior.

Assessed the stability of behavior over 8 3-day periods of 34 preschoolers 31–58 mo old, who were observed using the Parten-Smilansky categories. Cross-situational coefficients were significant at the .01 level for all behaviors. Temporal coefficients were also high when sufficiently long time periods were sampled. Results indicate that under some conditions the Parten-Smilansky instrument will satisfy the requirements of classical psychometric theory. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)