Poster #117 - Introduction to a continuous time measure of peer affiliation: Convergence with traditional metrics of friendship

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Methods, History, Theory

Integrative Statement

Traditional measurement of peer affiliation has involved teacher reports, peer reports, and expert observation. These measures demonstrate strong convergence in classrooms of preschool children: Observations indicate that children spend more time with reciprocally nominated affiliates than with nonaffiliates, and more time with nonaffiliates than with avoided classmates (Hartup, et al., 1988; Masters & Furman, 1981). Children also spend more time in the company of teacher nominated friends than with nonfriends (Marshall & McCandless, 1957), and peer nominations of friendship and affiliation are highly correlated with teacher reports of affiliation (Shin, et al., 2013). While teacher reports, peer nominations, and expert observations of affiliation are accurate and descriptive, they are expensive, labor intensive, and only capture narrow snapshots of time. The present study introduces a new technology designed to capture both continuous movement and vocalizations, thus capturing large amounts of social interaction data over the course of multiple days which can be used to accurately measure affiliation between children.

Ubisense (Killijian, et al., 2016) is a commercial system for location-based tracking using radio-frequency identification to identify and track tags worn by participants. Sensors track an ultra-wide-band signal emitted by two active tags worn by participants, allowing the system to triangulate the location of each child in the room and provide information on orientation. We paired Ubisense devices with Language Environment Analysis (LENA) recorders (Gilkerson & Richards, 2009), to capture information on conversational interaction between children. LENA recorded vocalizations were combined with directional and proximity information from by Ubisense to create continuous interaction scores for each dyad in a preschool classroom. Convergence data with traditional peer affiliation measures are described.

Participants included 9 (4 boys) preschool children (ages 2-3) who wore continuous recording devices for approximately 3 hours on 4 separate days over the course of a semester. Teacher reports of friendship were collected on 2 occasions, 7 weeks apart, from 3 teachers. Each dyad received a friendship score corresponding to the number of teachers who nominated the dyad as friends. Peer nominations of friendship were collected 4 times, during the seven-week period. Friendships were defined in terms of reciprocal nominations (Hagman, 1933) and were collected using pictures of classmates (McCandless & Marshall, 1957). Observers assessed children’s frequency of conversation, positive interaction, negative interaction, and closeness over ten-minute intervals. For each variable, reports were summed across waves.

Convergence between continuous measures of affiliation and traditional measures of affiliation are reported as intraclass correlations (r2). Across waves, LENA/Ubisense measures of affiliation were positively correlated with reciprocated friendship nominations (r=.48, p=.03). LENA/Ubisense measures of affiliation were also positively correlated with observations of affiliation (r=.45, p=.04). The correlation between LENA/Ubisense measures of affiliation and teacher reports of friendship was positive, but failed to reach statistical significance (r=.19, p=.27). These results are encouraging. As commercially available assessments of affiliation become increasingly affordable, scholars should continue to collect the large datasets afforded by in vivo recording, and continue to assess associations with conventional, experience-rich, techniques.

Authors

• Robert Larry Altman, Florida Atlantic University
  Presenting Author

• Brett Laursen, Florida Atlantic University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel Messinger, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lynn K Perry, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura Vitale, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Samantha Mitsven, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Stephanie Custode, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author