Predicting social-skill proficiency in young children from adult ratings of children's instrumental competence

One purpose of the present investigation was to examine the measurement properties (i.e., factor structure and reliability) of the COMPSCALE instrument designed by Lange, MacKinnon, and Nida (in press). In view of Lange et al.'s attempt to design items that assess instrumentality, it was expected that the majority of COMPSCALE items would load on a single factor, and the Cronbach alpha coefficient would reveal strong correlations among COMPSCALE items. A second purpose of the present study was to examine the predictive power of the COMPSCALE relative to traditional measures of competent functioning (i.e. the Kohn Social Competence Scale- Preschool and the Detroit Test of Learning Aptitude-Primary). These general indices of competent development were examined as predictors of four social outcome measures. A sociometric rating scale of children's popularity with peers (Asher, Singleton, Tinsley, & Hymel, 1979) was used to assess the effectiveness of children's social skills. Rubin's (1982a, 1982b) measure of social problem-solving (both categories and flexibility) was used to assess children's social knowledge. Gratch's (1964) "penny task" was used to assess children's perspective-taking ability