Poster #31 - Child Imagination Questionnaire: Individual Differences in Fantasy Orientation and Assessing Relations with Cognitive Development

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

Imagination is ubiquitous in childhood; we mark imaginative play as a milestone of development. Yet, research reports mixed findings regarding relations between childhood imagination and other developmental milestones. There are also limited measures of children’s imagination, especially from parent and teacher report, with few of the existing measures having psychometric properties. Therefore, this work sought to investigate the measurement of childhood imagination and create a valid and reliable parent and teacher report. The new “Childhood Imagination Questionnaire” was created to address these concerns. Items were culled from existing measures as well as from focus groups with researchers, parents, and teachers. Factor analyses on piloted items reduced the initial questionnaire to 22 items. Principal Component Analyses on data from 635 teacher reports reduced it to19 items loading on 3 subscales: (1) sociodramatic play, (2) imaginary friends and impersonation, and (3) fantastical play. Item Response Theory further reduced the questionnaire to 14 items loading onto the aforementioned subscales. Regarding psychometric properties, reliability for this measure is .84 (Cronbach’s alpha). Test-retest reliabilities range from .72-.76 for the 3 subscales. The subscales are related to each other as expected, but correlations are not high enough to indicate redundancy (.46, .49, .71). Additionally, analyses with related variables were calculated by subconstruct to estimate construct validity. The individual subconstructs are related to other variables in ways that are theoretically sound and also supported by existing literature. See Table 1 for variables of interest based on direct-assessment data collected from approximately 379 children along with teacher reports. In many cases childhood imagination is correlated with beneficial developmental skills, such as increased vocabulary, select executive function skills, emotional understanding, and theory of mind. However, it is also related to negative variables such as victimization and emotional lability, which is again consistent with findings from other studies. The negative reports all come from teacher observations. In previous datasets, although not adequately powered like this sample, children high in imaginary play tend to be rated by teachers and peers as more emotional and less socially competent. However, the direct child assessments that are related to social competence indicate that the children have better emotional understanding, better vocabulary, and either equal or better executive function (self control). This raises questions as to whether or not the children with high imagination truly have poor social competence or whether they are perceived as having poor social competence for an extraneous reason, such as engagement in more introspective, solo games. Future research should aim to explore these questions.

Authors

• Carmen Brown Farrell, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author

• Ansley Gilpin, University of Alabama
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rachel Thibodeau, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alexandra Nancarrow, University of Alabama
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melissa McInnis Brown, Texas Woman's University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jillian Pierucci, St. Mary’s University
  Non-Presenting Author