Gender-Based Versus Unitary Norms in Social-Emotional Assessment: A Critical but Underexplored Issue

• In Event: Crown Plaza Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Challenges and Issues in Assessing Social and Emotional Competence

Abstract

Some assessments of social-emotional competence in children and youth provide gender-based norms; others present unitary norms based on all individuals in the standardization sample. Because the raw score distributions for boys and girls typically differ, the choice of unitary or gender-based norms can substantially alter the interpretation of those scores. Standardization sample data from a widely used assessment will be used to show how, compared to unitary norms, gender-based norms will result in fewer boys being identified as having low, and fewer girls being identified as having high, social-emotional competence. The theoretical, value-based, and especially practical implications of using unitary versus gender-based norms will be explored with the goal of making practitioners more aware of this important distinction.

Authors

• Alyssa Ciarlante, Aperture Education, LLC

• Paul Augustine LeBuffe, Aperture Education