Social skills scale: aspects of reliability and validity of a new 9-item scale assessing social-skills

In this article, the psychometric properties of a new scale aimed at quantifying social skills are explored. The social skills scale is a quantitative, easy-to-administer measure designed to be context-independent. The Social Skills Scale was tested on a sample of 127 children aged 3–5 years (mean age = 3.83, SD = 0.72) from Iceland, allowing for an initial examination of its applicability, internal consistency, and reliability. Preschool teachers tested/evaluated the children. The findings indicate that the scale is suitable for use with children in this age range. All individual items showed positive correlations with the total score, with item-total correlation coefficients ranging from 0.35 to 0.76. The scale demonstrated high internal consistency, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.89 for the standardized items. To assess inter-rater reliability, two independent observers (preschool teachers) evaluated a subset of 10 children (mean age = 4.04, SD = 0.21). The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) between the two raters was 0.88, indicating good reliability for this age group of Icelandic children.These promising initial results support further development of the Social Skills Scale, including norming the instrument on a larger and more representative sample and carrying out further validation of the scale.