Assessing Self-Regulation in Grade 1 Writers: An Evaluation of the Reliability and Validity of the Interview on Self-Regulation in Early Writing

Few studies have considered the reliability and validity of the measures used to assess self-regulation in writing. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Interview on Self-Regulation in Early Writing, a novel task-specific measure designed to assess self-regulation in writing in Grade 1. This eight-item interview was designed to assess the planning, goal setting, strategy, self-statements, self-monitoring, coping, reviewing, and self-reinforcement aspects of self-regulation on separate transcription and composition dimensions. The data from 117 Grade 1 students were used to evaluate inter-rater reliability and the internal consistency of the scale. A principal components analysis (PCA) was used to examine the internal structure of the scale. Discriminant and predictive validity were also assessed. The Interview on Self-Regulation in Early Writing had excellent inter-rater reliability and good internal consistency once unreliable items were removed. The internal structure and discriminate and predictive validity analyses provided support for the validity of this measure. In sum, the current study provided evidence that supported the reliability and validity of the Interview on Self-Regulation in Early Writing. Further, it provided a description of self-regulatory writing behaviours writing in Grade 1 and filled a gap in the literature between content-neutral self-regulation in early childhood and subject-specific self-regulation in later grades