Educational and Psychological

Measurement
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Measures of Social and Emotional Skills for Children and Young People : A
Systematic Review
Neil Humphrey, Afroditi Kalambouka, Michael Wigelsworth, Ann Lendrum, Jessica
Deighton and Miranda Wolpert
Educational and Psychological Measurement 2011 71: 617
DOI: 10.1177/0013164410382896

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 Educational and Psychological
Measurement
Measures of Social and 71(4) 617637
The Author(s) 2011
Emotional Skills for Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Children and Young People: DOI: 10.1177/0013164410382896
http://epm.sagepub.com

A Systematic Review

Neil Humphrey1, Afroditi Kalambouka1,

Michael Wigelsworth1, Ann Lendrum1,
Jessica Deighton2, and Miranda Wolpert2

Abstract
This study presents the findings of a systematic review of measures of social and
emotional skills for children and young people. The growing attention to this area in
recent years has resulted in the development of a large number of measures to aid in
the assessment of children and young people. These measures vary on a number of
variables relating to implementation characteristics and psychometric properties.The
methodology of the review followed the general principles of systematic reviewing,
such as systematic search of databases, the adoption of predetermined set of inclusion
and exclusion criteria, and a multistage filtering process. The review process resulted
in the retention of 12 measures, which are presented and discussed in relation to key
issues in this area, including difficulties with the underlying theory and frameworks for
social and emotional skills, inconsistent terminology, the scope and distinctiveness of
available measures, and more practical issues such as the type of respondent, location,
and purpose of measurement.

Keywords
social and emotional skills, measurement, children

1
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
2
The Anna Freud Centre, London, UK

Corresponding Author:
Neil Humphrey, School of Education, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK
Email: neil.humphrey@manchester.ac.uk

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618 Educational and Psychological Measurement 71(4)

Introduction
This article reports on the findings of a systematic review of measures of social and
emotional skills for children and young people. Its intended contributions are (a) to
provide an overview of the state of the field in this important area of psychological
measurement, (b) to highlight key issues pertaining to the definition and measurement
of social and emotional skills in children and young people, and (c) to outline and
discuss the implementation characteristics and psychometric properties of the 12 mea-
sures of social and emotional skills that passed our systematic review screening process
and are firmly established in the academic literature in this area.
The article is the first (to our best knowledge) truly systematic and rigorous review
of measures of social and emotional skills for children and young people, and as such
it may provide a unique contribution to knowledge in this field. It is intended to be of
use to researchers and practitioners with an interest in childrens social and emotional
skills around the world. To this end, we have included information pertaining to the
availability of norms and translated versions of the measures identified during the
review process. This is of particular importance given the increasing interest in childrens
social and emotional skills in countries other than the United States and the United
Kingdom (Fundacion Marcelino Botin, 2008).

Defining Social and Emotional Skills

In recent years, educational policies in the United Kingdom, the United States, and
elsewhere have reflected a growing interest and investment in the development of social
and emotional skills as a means to promote childrens well-being, adjustment, and
academic achievement. The issue of the mixed and inconclusive evidence on the effec-
tiveness of these approaches is a matter of ongoing debate that has generated a great
deal of academic and professional interest and will continue to do so for the foreseeable
future (Humphrey, Curran, Morris, Farrell, & Woods, 2007; Humphrey et al., 2008;
Zeidner, Roberts, & Matthews, 2002). However, more fundamental issuessuch as
inconsistencies in the definition, measurement, and utility of the concept of social and
emotional skillsalso need to be acknowledged and explored (Matthews, Zeidner, &
Roberts, 2004; Wigelsworth, Humphrey, Kalambouka, & Lendrum, 2010). There seems
to be little common consensus as regards to what is meant by social and emotional
skills, and how they are best measured. As Humphrey et al. (2007) have argued, clear
definition is a basic scientific requirementyet one is still lacking in this area.
Social and emotional skills is referred to in this article as it is the currently preferred
term in English government policy documentation (e.g., Department for Children,
Schools and Families [DCSF], 2007a, 2007b). We use it to incorporate other terms,
such as social and emotional intelligence, emotional literacy, and social and
emotional competence, among others. Although some authors (e.g., Weare & Gray,
2003) have argued for the differentiation of these terms, reviews of the literature in this
area (e.g., Humphrey et al., 2007; Wigelsworth et al., 2010) have led us to the

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Humphrey et al. 619

Table 1. Denhams (2005a) Framework for SocialEmotional Competence

Emotional competence skills Self-awareness Understanding self emotions

Self-management Emotional and behavioral regulation
Social awareness Understanding emotions
Empathy/sympathy
Relational/prosocial skills Social problem solving
Relationship skills Cooperation
Listening skills
Turn-taking
Seeking help

conclusion that they do not describe qualitatively different concepts. In defining social
and emotional skills, we refer readers to the framework of socialemotional competence
proposed by Denham (2005a). Drawing on the work of Rose-Krasnor (1997) and Payton
et al. (2000), Denham proposes a delineation of relational/prosocial skills and emotional
competence skills as given in Table 1.
This model benefits from reflecting the domains outlined in major theoretical models
(e.g., Bar-On, 1997; Goleman, 1995; Salovey & Mayer, 1990) in this area, without
suffering from the nebulous, imprecise nature of the more wide-ranging definitions
(e.g., Petrides & Furnham, 2001) that have attracted criticism from skeptics (see Mat-
thews, Zeidner, et al., 2004).
A number of key issues in reviewing measures of social and emotional skills are
suggested in the literature. In brief, these include (a) the distinction between capturing
typical and maximal behavior (Wilhelm, 2005), (b) the extent to which measures of
social and emotional skills provide information that is distinct or unique among existing
constructs (e.g., personality), (c) the scope and specificity of measures (e.g., single,
unidimensional vs. complex, multidimensional), and (d) who provides information
(e.g., children, teacher, parent, peers; see Wigelsworth et al., 2010).

Rationale and Context for the Current Study

The accurate assessment of social and emotional skills in children and young people
has crucial implications for public health because of the associations with mental health,
academic performance, and other key outcomes (Denham, Wyatt, Bassett, Echeverria,
& Knox, 2009). In late 2008, the authors were commissioned by the DCSF to conduct
a systematic review of measures of social and emotional skills for children and young
people (Humphrey et al., 2009) as companion to a systematic review of measures of
child mental health in children (Wolpert et al., 2009). The aim of the review was to
identify a range of measures suitable for assessing social and emotional skills in children
and young people for possible future inclusion in a population survey relating to progress
toward the 2020 vision in the Childrens Plan (DCSF, 2007b). This policy document

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620 Educational and Psychological Measurement 71(4)

sets out an ambitious set of goals for children in England to be achieved by the year
2020, including a focus on improving social and emotional skills. Beyond this, we felt
that a review of this kind was extremely timely. Although there are a handful of discus-
sion papers (e.g., Wigelsworth et al., 2010) and reviews (e.g., Denham, 2005a; Stewart-
Brown & Edmunds, 2003) in the literature, they are all selective and none have applied
a rigorous and systematic approach. Furthermore, given the emphasis on monitoring
and evaluation in currently popular initiatives such as the Social and Emotional Aspects
of Learning (SEAL) program, a review of this kind should also be useful to practitioners.
Although the DCSF have provided a guidance document on this topic (see DCSF,
2007a), it contains no substantive references to issues such as reliability and validity,
and only one of the recommended measures has undergone any kind of appropriate
validation process. Finally, given the high level of academic interest and debate around
the concept of emotional intelligence, a review of this kind is crucial: Determining
whether EI [emotional intelligence] is a measurable quality is central to its development
as a scientific construct (Matthews, Roberts, & Zeidner, 2004, p. 182).

Review Method
The present review followed the general paradigm of a parallel systematic review of
mental health measures for children and young people (Wolpert et al., 2009). The review
followed a systematic process across six consecutive stages, summarized in the flow
diagram given in Figure 1 and described below.

Stages 1: Identification of Measures

Setting the Parameters of the Review and Search of Key Databases. Following the paral-
lel child mental health review (Wolpert et al., 2009), outcome measures were defined
as any assessment or evaluation tools (e.g., questionnaires, checklists, or scales) that
aim to measure the social and emotional skills of children and young people. The terms
of the measures of social and emotional skills review were divided into three catego-
ries (see below) and their related terms (see Table 2):

a. terms relating to social and emotional skills,

b. terms relating to measurement, and
c. terms relating to the population under study (children and young people)

Initial database searches focused on the main psychology, sociology, education, and
medical databases. However, searches in the main medical databases produced limited
relevant hits and a lot of irrelevant hits (e.g., those that were within the child mental
health review remit), so it was decided that the medical databases would be dropped in
favor of more extensive searches in the following educational, social and psychology
databases: PsychInfo, Education Resources Information Centre (ERIC), British Educa-
tion Index (BEI), Australian Education Index (AEI), and Applied Social Sciences Indexes

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Humphrey et al. 621

Identification of
measures
Stage 1: Literature searches in 5
databases: Psychinfo, ERIC, BEI,
AEI, and ASSIA

Stage 2: Secondary searches and

collective knowledge tranche
Identification of 189
measures

Sifting of Stage 3: Filtering of measures

measures according to inclusion and
exclusion criteria
Filtering down to 52
measures

Collecting more Stage 4: Secondary searches;

Information on requests to measure developers
retained for more information
measures and Filtering down to 23
further sifting measures
Stage 5: Filtering according to
academic presence - number of
articles using measure
Filtering down to 12
measures

Detailed Stage 6: Presentation and

examination of description implementation
final measures characteristics, and psychometric
properties

Figure 1. Stages in the systematic review process

and Abstracts (ASSIA). All related terms for each of the three categories of interest (see
Table 1) were then entered in the thesaurus facility within each database in order to
ensure that the key words under which articles were catalogued would be identified
through using the appropriate terms within each specific database. The thesaurus searches
produced additional relevant key words and/or headings, which were then incorporated
into subsequent searches. For example, the terms emotional adjustment and emotional
development were identified within the ERIC thesaurus facility search and were later
used to capture relevant articles. Any additional terms produced through the thesaurus/
heading search that were too broad and produced too many irrelevant hits were later

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622 Educational and Psychological Measurement 71(4)

Table 2. Categories of Interests and Related Terms for the Systematic Review
Category
1. Social and emotional skills
2. Measurement
3. Population of interest
Related Terms
Social/emotional
Social, emotional, socioemotional, socio-emotional, effect,
affective, interpersonal
Skills
Skills, intelligence, competence, literacy, learning, awareness,
ability, regulation
Measure, measurement, questionnaire, survey, checklist,
check list, tool, rating scale, scale, inventory, assessment,
evaluation, screening, instrument, test
Children, adolescents, pupils, students

discarded. This stage generated a list of final search terms, which were then used to run
searches across each of the databases (see Table 3).
A total of 2,870 hits were transferred and saved into bibliographic applications
(EndNote 9.0.1 for the ASSIA and PsychInfo databases; Reference Manager v11 for
the ERIC, BEI, and AEI databases). Basic filtering was then applied through reading
the title (and/or abstract in cases where the title was not sufficient) to discard the obvi-
ously irrelevant hits (i.e., papers not related to the measurement of childrens social
and emotional skills). Basic filtering resulted in a total of 542 articles. The details of
these articles (title, abstract, and publication details) were transferred into Excel spread-
sheets, where further filtering took place involving the application of the following
exclusion criteria: (a) no social and/or emotional skills measure mentioned in the abstract,
(b) the measure mentioned was too narrow to provide a broad assessment of social and
emotional skills (e.g., focused exclusively on just one specific aspect of social and
emotional skills such as empathy), (c) the article referred to a measure that was not
used with child or adolescent populations, (d) the article was not in English, and/or
(e) the article was a duplicate of a previous hit within the database. All remaining hits
after this filtering procedure were organized according to the measures they referred
to, resulting to a total of 137 measures.

Stage 2: Secondary Searches and Collective Knowledge Tranche

The list of 137 measures was complemented by a number of measures from a collec-
tive knowledge tranche. These were measures that were known to members of the
research team through previous research. Additional measures were identified through
reviewing papers and compendiums (e.g., Denham, 2005a) and/or bibliographic refer-
ences. The authors also contacted a number of relevant groups and organizations (e.g.,
Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning; Antidote) via email, but

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Humphrey et al. 623

Table 3. Final Search Terms for the Systematic Review

Hits After
Database Search Terms for Subject Heading Initial Hits Basic Filtering
ASSIA DE = (emotion* or social) and DE = (skills 172 80
or intelligence or competence or learning
or awareness or regulation or behavior
or interaction) and DE = (measure* or
questionnaire* or assessment or test*
or survey* or scale* or evaluation or
instrument*) and DE = (child* or (young
people) or adolescent* or pupil* or
student*)
ERIC, BEI, and (emotional skills OR socioemotional skills OR 1820 390
AEI social intelligence OR social competence
OR emotional literacy OR emotional
development OR social development
OR interpersonal competence OR social
cognition OR affective behavior OR social
behavior OR social skills OR emotional
intelligence OR emotional competence
OR socioemotional competence OR social
literacy OR socioemotional literacy OR
social learning OR emotional learning OR
social awareness OR emotional awareness
OR emotional adjustment OR emotional-
response OR social ability OR emotional
ability OR socioemotional ability) DE
AND (Measurement OR Questionnaire
OR Rating-Scale OR surveys OR check-
list OR psychometric OR assessment
OR screening) DE AND (children OR
adolescent OR pupil OR student) DE
PsychInfo (emotion* or social* or socio*) AND 788 72
(measure* or question* or survey or check*
or tool or rating or scale* or inventor*
or instrument* or test* or screening or
repository or assessment* or evaluation*)
AND (child* or adolscen* or youth* or
young* or pupil* or student*)
Note. ASSIA = Applied Social Sciences Indexes and Abstracts; ERIC = Education Resources Information
Centre; BEI = British Education Index; AEI = Australian Education Index. Hits refers to the number of
articles identified in each database.

this did not result in the procurement of any measures not already identified elsewhere.
A total of 52 measures identified in this stage were added to the existing list for further
sorting, increasing the total number of measures to 189.

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624 Educational and Psychological Measurement 71(4)

Stage 3: Sifting of Measures

Filtering of Measures According to Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria. This stage
involved reading of the relevant abstract and/or article and applying a list of inclusion/
exclusion criteria. A measure was included if it met all of the inclusion criteria and
excluded if it met one or more of the exclusion criteria:
Inclusion criteria. To include a measure of social and emotional skills for children and
adolescents, the measure should

1. seek to provide measurement of generic social and emotional skills in children

and young people (up to 18);
2. be either multidimensional or unidimensional;
3. refer to a measure that can be completed by child or parents/carers with the
possible addition of professionals such as teachers (but not by teachers only);
4. have been validated in a child or adolescent context, even if not originally
developed for this purpose;
5. be available in English language; and
6. be able to be used with a reasonably wide age range (e.g., not just for
preschoolers).

Exclusion criteria. A measure would be excluded if it:

1. is not available in English;

2. does not measure social and/or emotional skills;
3. does not cover a broad range of social and/or emotional skills (e.g., focused
exclusively on just one specific aspect of social and emotional skills such as
empathysee Table 1);
4. is not used with children and/or adolescents;
5. is based on professional report only (e.g., teacher, educational psychologist,
or other practitioner);
6. takes more than 30 minutes to complete;
7. provides open-ended responses that have to be manually coded;
8. the age range is too narrow (e.g., preschool version of the measure only);
9. has not been used with a variety of populations (e.g., only used with specialist
groups such as children with autism).

Following application of the above criteria, the list of 187 measures was reduced to
52 measures (for a list of the 52 measures see Humphrey et al., 2009). Measures for
which information from the abstract/article did not provide adequate evidence to apply
the above inclusion/exclusion criteria at this stage were still retained until further evi-
dence was available to enable a decision on retention.

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Humphrey et al. 625

Stage 4: Collecting More Information on Retained Measures

Secondary Searches and Requests to Measure Developers for More Informa-
tion. The above list of the 52 potentially suitable measures was organized in an Excel
database, where information was entered on the following variables: a brief description
of the measure, different versions available (e.g., child, parent, teacher), number of
items and completion time, scales and subscales are included in the measure, response
format (e.g., 4-point Likert-type scale), information on reliability (internal consistency,
testretest) and validity (e.g., construct validity), sample items, cost, and key references.
To provide as complete information as possible on these variables, several procedures
were followed: (a) an attempt was made to obtain as many articles as possible on each
measure and (b) measure developers were contacted through email/telephone to fill in
gaps in our database and to request manuals and articles. As we found more detailed
information on each measure it became obvious that some did not meet the inclusion/
exclusion criteria set out in the previous stage (for instance, if we found that a given
measure could only be completed by teachers). By the end of this stage a total of 23
measures were retained.

Stage 5: Filtering According to Academic Presence: Number of

Articles Using Measure
This stage involved a further filtering process in which only measures that had been
used in four or more articles in peer-reviewed academic journals were retained. This
was done in an effort to retain only measures with an established and sustained presence
in the academic literature, whilst also ensuring a workable number of measures for
detailed examination in the final stage. Four or more articles was considered to be a
useful benchmark since it would typically signify that the measure has gone beyond
basic development and validation and is being used by the academic community for
program evaluation, theory development, and so on. This process resulted in 12 mea-
sures being retained.

Stage 6: Detailed Examination of Final Measures

Presentation and Description: Implementation Characteristics and Psychometric
Properties of Final 12 Measures. The final 12 measures were reviewed in depth in
relation to their implementation characteristics and psychometric properties. These are
presented in Tables 4 and 5, respectively.

Discussion
The primary purpose of our systematic review was to was to identify a range of measures
suitable for assessing social and emotional skills in children and young people for pos-
sible future inclusion in a population survey relating to progress toward the 2020

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 Table 4. Implementation Characteristics of the Final 12 Measures
Completion

626
Maximal or Age Time Response
Measure Acronym Typical Scope (Years) Versions Length (Minutes) Scales and Subscales Scales Other Languages

Bar-On Emotional EQI:YV, Typical Social 7-18 Child 60, 30(S) 20-25, Total emotional intelligence, Likert 1-4 Pedi (South
Quotient EQI:YV(S) emotional 10-15 (S) interpersonal, Africa)
Inventory:Youth intrapersonal, adaptability,
Version (Bar-On & stress management,
Parker, 2008) general mood, positive
impression, inconsistency
index
Child Assertive CABS, Maximal Social 8-12 Child, 27 10-15 Total assertiveness, passivity, Multiple Spanish,
Behaviour Scale CABS-SR (child), parent, and aggressiveness choice Dutch
(Michelson & Wood, typical teacher 1-5
1982) (other)
Social Competence SCBE Typical Social 2.5-6.5 Teacher, 80, 30(S) 15 Depressivejoyful, anxious Likert 1-6 French-
and Behavior parent secure, angrytolerant, Canadian,
Evaluation Scale isolatedintegrated, Spanish,
(LaFreniere & aggressivecalm, Japanese,
Dumas, 1996) egotisticalprosocial, Russian,
oppositionalcooperative, Chinese,
dependentautonomous Portuguese,
and 4 summary scales: Italian,
social competence, Austrian-
externalizing problems, German
internalizing problems, and

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general adaptation
Preschool and PKBS-2 Typical Social 3-6 Teacher, 76 12 Social cooperation, Likert 1-4 Spanish
Kindergarten parent social interaction,
Behaviour Scales-2 social independence,
(Merrell, 1996) externalizing problems and
internalizing problems
Prosocial Tendencies PTM-R Typical Social 11-18 Child 25 30 Public, anonymous, dire, Likert 1-5
MeasureRevised emotional emotional, compliant
(Carlo, Hausmann, and altruistic prosocial
Christiansen, & behavior
Randall, 2003)

(continued)

Table 4. (continued)
Completion
Maximal or Age Time Response
Measure Acronym Typical Scope (Years) Versions Length (Minutes) Scales and Subscales Scales Other Languages

Child Rating Scale CRS Typical Social 5-13 Child, 24, 38 10-20 Rule compliance/acting Likert 1-3
(Hightower, parent, (teacher), out, anxiety/withdrawal,
Cowen, Spinell, & teacher 18 (parent) interpersonal social skills,
Lotyczewski, 1987) self-confidence (child);
acting out, shy-anxious,
learning, frustration
tolerance, assertive social
skills, task orientation,
peer sociability (teacher);
Acting out, frustration
tolerance, shy-anxious and
peer sociability (parent)
Social Skills SSIS, SSRS Typical Social 3-18 Child, 79 (parent), 10-25 Social skills (communication, Likert 1-4 Spanish,
Improvement emotional parent, 75 (child), cooperation, assertion, Iranian
System (Gresham & teacher 83 (teacher) responsibility, empathy,
Elliot, 1990) engagement, self-control),
competing problem
behaviors (externalizing,
bullying, hyperactivity/
inattention, internalizing,

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autism spectrum), and
academic competence
(reading achievement,
math achievement,
motivation to learn)
Assessment of ACES Maximal Emotional 4-8 Child 56 10-25 Emotional attribution Multiple
Childrens Emotion accuracy, anger attribution choice
Skills (Schultz, Izard, tendencies, happiness 1-5
& Bear, 2004) attribution tendencies,
sadness attribution
tendencies

627
(continued)
 628
Table 4. (continued)
Completion
Maximal or Age Time Response
Measure Acronym Typical Scope (Years) Versions Length (Minutes) Scales and Subscales Scales Other Languages

Emotion Regulation ERC Typical Emotional 6-12 Parent, 24 10 Negativity, emotional Likert 1-4
Checklist (Shields & teacher regulation
Cicchetti, 1997)
Matson Evaluation of MESSY Typical Social 4-18 Child, 64 (teacher), 10-25 Appropriate social Likert 1-5 Japanese,
Social Skills with emotional teacher 62 (child) skills, inappropriate Spanish,
Youngsters (Matson, assertiveness, Turkish,
Rotari, & Helsel, impulsiveness, Chinese,
1983) overconfident behavior, Dutch,
jealousy Portuguese
Diagnostic Analysis DANVA Maximal Emotional 4-adult Child 16-32 30 Interpretation of child and Multiple
of Nonverbal adult faces, paralanguage choice
Accuracy (Nowicki and posture 1-4
& Duke, 1989)
Differential Emotions DES-IV Typical Emotional 7-adult Child 36 10-15 Positive emotionality Likert 1-5
Scale (Izard, (interest, joy, surprise),
Dougherty, Bloxom, negative emotionality
& Kotsch, 1974) (shyness, sadness, anger,
disgust, contempt, self-

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hostility, fear, guilt and
shame)

Table 5. Psychometric Properties of the Final 12 Measures
Reliability Validity
U.S. U.K.
Measure Norms Norms Internal TestRetest Other Factorial Convergent Discriminative Predictive Other

EQI:YV Yes Yes .67-.90 .77-.89 Standard error of Yes Correlates with adult Distinguishes Predicts problem
measurement emotional between gifted gambling in
and prediction intelligence, and nongifted adolescence
available by age personality, students and academic
and gender internalizing and achievement in high
externalizing school
problems
CABS No No .79 (total 0.66-0.78 (4 Yes (for Correlates with social Distinguishes
scale) weeks) both single problem solving between children
and dual with high and low
structure) sociometric status
SCBE Yes No .80-.89 .74-.87 (2 Yes Correlates moderately Differentiated a Predicts social
weeks), with internalizing smaller clinical interaction/
.59-.70 (6 and externalizing sample from the rejection and peer
months) problems overall sample victimization
PKBS-2 Yes No .84-.97 .58-.86 (3 Standard error of Yes Correlated with other Discriminates
weeks), measurement established measures between typically
.69-.78 (3 available; of social skills, while developing
months) interrater problem behavior children,
reliability: scores correlated children at risk

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.36-.63 with externalizing of developing
and internalizing socialbehavioral
problems problems, children
with internalizing
externalizing
problems, and
children with
ADHD symptoms

629
(continued)
 Table 5. (continued)

630
Reliability Validity
U.S. U.K.
Measure Norms Norms Internal TestRetest Other Factorial Convergent Discriminative Predictive Other

PTM-R No No .59-.86 .54-.82 (2 Yes Subscales correlate with

weeks) several theoretically
related variables
(from cognitive
variables to emotive
and behavior
measures)
CRS ? No .49-.80 .49-.79 (child), Yes Correlates with Discriminates
(child), .61-.91 classroom between stress-
.89-.95 (teacher), adjustment, health resilient and stress-
(teacher) .91 (parent) resources, and self- affected children
esteem
SSIS Yes No .72-.97 .72-.87 Interrater Yes (including Correlates with other Discriminates Development of
(parent), (parent), reliability: .48- with ADHD similar measures between controls tool included
.73-.97 .68-.92 .69 (teacher), subsample) and children with item response
(teacher), (teacher), .38-.69 (parent); ADHD theory
.73-.95 .59-.81 standard error
(child) (child) of measurement
by age and
gender available
ACES No No .46-.70 Predicts academic

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competence
and attentional
competence
ERC No No .84-.92 Yes Distinguishes between
bullies and victims
MESSY Yes No Split-half .60-.90 Yes Correlates with similar
a: .78 measures in normal
(child), .87 and learning disabled
(teacher) samples

(continued)

Table 5. (continued)
Reliability Validity
U.S. U.K.
Measure Norms Norms Internal TestRetest Other Factorial Convergent Discriminative Predictive Other

DANVA No No .69-.81 .66 Correlates with

previous version of
measure
DES-IV No No .50-.85 .30-.75 Subscales correlate Discriminates
with depression between abused
and nonabused
female samples,
and depressed
and nondepressed
subjects

Note. EQI:YV = Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory:Youth Version; CABS = Child Assertive Behavior Scale; SCBE = Social Competence and Behaviour Evaluation

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Scale; PKBS-2; Preschool and Kindergarten Behaviour Scales2; PTM-R = Prosocial Tendencies MeasureRevised; CRS = Child Rating Scale; SSIS = Social Skills
Improvement System; ACES = Assessment of Childrens Emotion Skills; ERC = Emotion Regulation Checklist; MESSY = Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters;
DANVA = Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy; DES-IV = Differential Emotions ScaleIV; ADHD = attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

631
632 Educational and Psychological Measurement 71(4)

vision in the Childrens Plan (DCSF, 2007b). At a secondary level, we sought to pres-
ent an overview of the current state of this field. The review process resulted in the
retention of 12 measures that vary greatly in both their implementation characteristics
and psychometric properties. In this final section of the current article we present some
key issues that have arisen during the course of our review, providing illustrative exam-
ples from the measures identified.
In relation to the establishment and sustained presence of measures in the academic
literature, very few measures appear to have a good shelf life. Although 12 measures
have yielded 4 or more publications in peer-reviewed journals, only a very small hand-
ful (notably the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy [DANVA], Social Com-
petence and Behaviour Evaluation Scale [SCBE], and Social Skills Improvement System
[SSIS]) have been used with great frequency (e.g., more than 10 articles). Considering
that 189 measures were originally identified, it is clear that many are short-lived. This
is not uncommon thoughButler and Gasson (2005) identified a similar issue in their
review of measures of self-concept and self-esteem. One must also consider that the
upsurge in interest in social and emotional learning (and therefore measurement of
social and emotional skills) among children and adolescents is relatively recent (although
interest in social skills can be traced back to Thorndike, a standard watershed in the
literature is Salovey and Mayers (1990) article on emotional intelligence). Furthermore,
the rather protean nature of the construct in question provides a fundamental problem
for measure developers. Indeed, it has led some critics to state that it is bereft of any
conceptual meaning (Zeidner et al., 2002, p. 215).
A further observation we have made is the imbalance among the scope and type of
the measures identified. There appear to be many more well-established measures that
tap social skills, as opposed to emotional skills or both. Furthermore, there are relatively
few maximal behavior measures. This has important implications in terms of recom-
mending a truly direct measure, since there is the danger that typical behavior
social and emotional skills measures may simply tap aspects of personality (Gannon
& Ranzijn, 2005; Schulte, Ree, & Carretta, 2004; Van Rooy, Viswesvaran, & Pluta,
2005). However, this has to be balanced against the practical advantages (e.g., time)
of typical behavior measures, and also the emergent pockets of evidence regarding their
validity (e.g., Petrides et al., 2006, found that scores on the Trait Emotional Intelligence
Questionnaire were associated with peer nominations of behavioral descriptions, such
as cooperative and disruptive). There are also concerns relating to the practicalities
of capturing certain domainssuch as self-awarenessin a maximal behavior
paradigm.
The majority of measures reviewed here have been developed and standardized with
American populations. For some of these measures, evidence of research carried out
with other populations has concluded that they can be translated and adopted in differ-
ent cultures while still retaining acceptable reliability and validity. However, of the 12
final measures produced by this review, only one (the Bar-On Emotional Quotient
Inventory: Youth Version [EQI:YV]) has U.K. norms; several have no norms at all, and
none have norms for countries other than the United States or the United Kingdom.

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Humphrey et al. 633

This is a particular concern given that cultural transferability between the United States,
the United Kingdom, and other countries cannot be automatically assumed. In terms
of psychometrics, our retained measures largely demonstrated acceptable properties
using standard techniques (e.g., internal consistency, testretest reliability, factorial
validity, construct validity, discriminative validity), but evidence pertaining to more
advanced analysis (such as those based on item response theoryas recommended by
Terwee et al., 2007) was lacking for most measures (notable exceptions include the
Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters [MESSY] and SSIS). This may
again reflect the emergent state of the field.
Beyond the aforementioned issues, there appears to have been little analysis of the
applicability of the measures to different groups of childrensuch as different ethnic
groupsalthough the SSIS is an exception in this regard (Van Horn, Atkins-Burnett,
Karlin, & Snyder, 2007). This kind of work is of course essential to ensuring that a
given measure is appropriate for use with diverse groups of children and young people
(e.g., in the aforementioned population survey), but just as importantly it can lead to
development and improvement of the instrument itself. For instance, in Van Horn
et al.s (2007) recent psychometric analysis of the SSIS, an alternative factor structure
with a stronger data fit to that proposed in the manual for the measure emerged.
The range of possible respondents in our final 12 measures also varied greatly. Only
three (Child Assertive Behavior Scale [CABS], Child Rating Scale [CRS], and SSIS)
have child, parent, and teacher versions, and five (EQI:YV, Prosocial Tendencies
MeasureRevised [PTM-R], Assessment of Childrens Emotion Skills [ACES], DANVA,
and Differential Emotions Scale [DES]) can only be completed by the child/young
person. Consideration of the range of respondents for a given measure is important
because each has access to unique information. Through introspection, the child has
access to the most detailed information about himself or herself of any of the possible
respondents. Furthermore, recent policy and legislation has placed increasing emphasis
on the importance of the childs perspective (e.g., Every Child MattersDepartment
for Education and Skills, 2003). However, as self-awareness/perception follows a
developmental trajectory, older children and adolescents are likely to be more accurate
responders than younger children (Denham, 2005b).
The limited number of measures that incorporate child, teacher, and parent responses
creates difficulties for researchers and/or practitioners attempting to create a triangulated
profile of the social and emotional skills of a child or group of children. The advantages
to triangulating measures of social and emotional skills are clear, especially in response
to overcoming difficulties in self-report (see above). Of course, one must factor in the
increased time and expense in collecting data from numerous perspectives, especially
given typically low response rates of certain groups (such as parents). However, given
the relatively low concurrence between teacher, parent, and child responses in this area
(e.g., Humphrey et al., 2008, found correlations as low as .25, indicating only 6% shared
variance), consideration needs to be given as to whose perspective is prioritized.

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634 Educational and Psychological Measurement 71(4)

Conclusion
In concluding, it is also important to note the limitations imposed on our review process.
Although we have conducted an entirely systematic review, the protean nature of the
area under investigation caused some difficulties, and other authors interpretations of
social and emotional skills may differ from our own (meaning that other authors may
have used different definitionsleading to different results!). The fact that the precise
keywords used and/or the precise question under investigation may determine the result
of a systematic review has been acknowledged as one of the integral characteristics of
systematic reviews (Hannes, Claes, & The Belgian Campbell Group, 2007; Nind, 2006).
Furthermore, the systematic review process itself is not without criticism. For example,
publication bias (the tendency for a greater proportion of studies with statistically
significant positive results to be publishedTorgerson, 2006) might have limited the
published articles for a given measure and therefore the measures inclusion in the later
stages of our review. While we acknowledge this, we felt that this criterion was an
important way to assess the academic presence of the measures. Furthermore, all
criteria were negotiated with users from the project steering group. Such close consulta-
tion with users not only contributes to the significance of the review and its fitness for
purpose but also helps in addressing bias relating to the interpretation of findings (Harlen
& Crick, 2004).
The systematic review reported in this article identified 12 measures with varying
implementation characteristics and psychometric properties. We feel that this variability
particularly in relation to psychometric propertiesreflects the emergent state of the
field. Although there has been an interest in social and emotional learning over the last
two decades, measure development has struggled to keep pace. This is undoubtedly
reflected in the fact that many reports of social and emotional learning program evalu-
ations have not contained any social and emotional skills outcome measures, instead
using proxy indicators of success like reductions in mental health problems or increases
in attendance (Humphrey et al., 2007).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The research reported in this article was funded by a grant from the Department for Children,
Schools and Families (REF: 2008/056).

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