Abstract
In the field of assessment of social skills, a great deal of attention has been paid to the issue of what behaviors or skills to assess, while relatively little attention has been paid to the question of who should do the assessing. In the absence of consensual agreement as to what constitutes social competence (Anderson & Messick, 1974; Foster & Ritchey, 1979; O’Malley, 1977), which might foster the development of a more objective index, most individuals in the field have relied upon the judgments of significant others in the natural environment, often in combination. It is our contention that the type of evaluator that we choose can have important implications for the picture of social skills that emerges. It is also our contention that we have too little information at present on the impact of the type of evaluator to allow for unambiguous interpretations of our data.
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Ledingham, J.E., Younger, A.J. (1985). The Influence of the Evaluator on Assessments of Children’s Social Skills. In: Schneider, B.H., Rubin, K.H., Ledingham, J.E. (eds) Children’s Peer Relations: Issues in Assessment and Intervention. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6325-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6325-5_7
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