The Icelandic Translation of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire - Teacher Form. An investigation of the psychometric properties in a sample of 6-10 year old children

Objective: To examine the psychometric properties of the current Icelandic translation of the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) teacher form in a community sample of 6-10 year old children. Method: 16 teachers rated 5 children in their classes using the current Icelandic SDQ totalling in 80 ratings in all. The children were chosen at random by the experimenter. Two factor analyses were conducted, one in which no specific number of factors were to be drawn and one in which five factors were determined to be drawn. This decision was based on the original five factor structure of the SDQ and the fact that the first scree plot seemed to indicate a five factor structure. In both cases a principal component analysis with a varimax rotation was used. Results: The original five factor structure was not replicated in either factor analyses. The non-predetermined factor structure analysis produced 8 factors in total with Eigenvalues over 1. Both factor analyses reproduced the hyperactivity scale, though it was not as clean in the five factor structure analysis. The first factor analysis also reproduced the peer problems subscale, which the second factor analysis failed to do. The second factor analysis did however reproduce the prosocial subscale, which the first one failed to do. Discussion: Some items proved quite problematic in this limited sample, though it seemed that some of those were not caused by the small sample size. Those items may need revision, but nothing conclusive can be drawn from such a small sample. Goodmans (1997) suggestion to use the 90th percentile as a clinical cut-off in each subscale did not seem appropriate in this study since the 90th percentile often landed on scores that were deemed to be in the normal range in UK normative data. Once again, nothing conclusive can be drawn from this due to the small sample size. Conclusions: The results from this study indicates that the current Icelandic translation of this questionnaire is not suitable for use in this age group. It did not replicate the original five factor structure, nor did it provide a useful alternative factor structure. It is not clear whether this is due to the small sample size or to peculiarities in the items themselves. Further study is needed