Assessment of perceived competence, motivational orientation, and anxiety in segregated and mainstreamed educable mentally retarded children.

Examined whether instruments designed to tap the self-system in normal IQ children could be used with retarded pupils. The Perceived Competence Scale for Children and scales assessing intrinsic vs extrinsic orientation in the classroom and school concerns were administered to 90 retarded children mainstreamed for socialization or academic purposes and to 36 retarded children who were taught in self-contained classrooms. All Ss were aged 9–12 yrs. For each measure, the 4- or 5-factor structure found for normal-IQ children was not obtained. However 2-factor solutions were revealed, leading to the identification of 6 constructs: General Competence, Popularity, Motivation for Hard Work, Autonomous Judgment, Concern About Evaluation, and Concern About Teacher Support. The failure to find differences between mainstreamed and self-contained Ss was related to the social comparison groups used. Mainstreamed Ss compared themselves with other mainstreamed retarded pupils, whereas self-contained Ss used other self-contained pupils as their comparison group. Findings highlight the need to revise instruments for use with the retarded and to obtain social comparison information. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)