Poster #185 - Predictive Validity of Direct and Global Assessments of Self-Regulation

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - School Readiness/Childcare

Integrative Statement

Self-regulation involves regulation of action, emotion, and cognition via top-down and bottom-up regulatory processes (Nigg, 2017) and is key to school readiness (Blair & Raver, 2015). We assessed self-regulation in a blended Head Start/Child Care program (N=75) using the Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment (PSRA; Smith-Donald et al., 2007) and the PSRA Leiter-R Assessor Report (PSRA-AR; Smith-Donald et al., 2007). The reliability and validity of the PSRA battery is well established, but few studies have assessed the PSRA-AR (Daneri, Sulik, Raver & Morris, 2018). The PSRA included ten structured tasks. Immediately following the PSRA, assessors completed the PSRA-AR, a 28-item scale that globally assessed the child’s attention, emotion, and behavior. Academic school readiness was measured with three Woodcock-Johnson III subtests (WJ III; Letter-Word Identification, Applied Problems, and Picture Vocabulary). Socio-emotional school readiness was assessed with teacher reports on the Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation (SCBE; LaFreniere & Dumas, 1996) which assessed social competence, internalizing, and externalizing behavior and the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC, Shields & Cicchetti, 1997), which assessed emotion regulation and lability.
Twenty-five items on the PSRA-AR rated on a 1-4 scale were considered for factor analysis. Descriptive statistics revealed low frequencies and excessive skew (> 2) for five items. A factor analysis was conducted on the remaining 18 items. The scree plot revealed a two-factor model best fit the data which yielded two internally consistent factors (Attention/Impulse Control: α = .96; Positive Emotion: α =.95, and explained 69.7% of the variance).
PSRA task scores were examined for excessive skew. Five of ten structured tasks remained in the PSRA battery (Hot: Tongue Task, Toy Wrap; Cool: Pencil Tap, Tower Clean Up, Toy Sort). Simple linear regression analyses were calculated to test the unique predictive utility of the two PSRA-AR factors for each school readiness measure (Table 1). Attention/Impulse Control significantly predicted all school readiness measures (R2 = .054 - .216, ps < .05), excluding SCBE internalizing behavior SCBE, R2= .003, F(1, 73) = 0.224, p =.65. The Positive Emotion factor significantly predicted SCBE internalizing only, R2 = .083, F(1, 73) = 6.591, p = .01.
Hierarchical regressions were conducted to determine if the PSRA-AR factors predicted school readiness measures above and beyond the cool and hot tasks (Table 2). At step one hot tasks contributed significantly to models for social competence, emotion regulation, and all WJ III subtests. Cool tasks explained an additional significant amount of variance for social competence, internalizing, emotion regulation and applied problems. The two PSRA-AR factors explained a significant additional amount variance in social competence.
We investigated the reliability and validity of the PSRA-AR, a short observer report of self-regulation. Our results suggest that the PSRA-AR was highly predictive of academic and socioemotional school readiness and may provide examiners with a valid, quick, and cost-effective measure of self-regulation that is complementary to the PSRA. Future examiners should consider utilizing the PSRA-AR, as well as the PSRA when investigating childhood self-regulation.

Authors

• Romin Emmanuel Geiger, Western Kentucky University
  Presenting Author

• Jasmine Ernst, Western Kentucky University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Ann Lemerise, Western Kentucky University
  Non-Presenting Author