ABSTRACT

Teachers of inclusive early childhood education (ECE) are responsible for monitoring children’s social skills achievement, and promoting social play between children with and without special educational needs (SEN). The Teacher Impression Scale (TIS) is an observational assessment developed for this purpose. This study aims to explore the social validity of the Swedish version of TIS, TIS-S, and to evaluate its effectiveness in identifying participants for peer-mediated interventions in Swedish preschools; by also testing the internal consistency, and the construct and criterion-related validity of the scale. The teachers (N = 16) observed children with SEN (n = 16) and without SEN (n = 16) in social play situations with TIS-S and subsequently answered a survey. Data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results demonstrate that the TIS-S has high internal reliability. The TIS-S also discriminated between the groups of children with and without SEN, which provided evidence of construct and criterion validity. Social validity was verified as the teachers reported that TIS-S was suitable for recognising individual children’s need for support in interactions with peers, planning for adaptations for all children in the social learning environment, and reflecting on the complexity of children’s social behaviour in play.

摘要

包容性幼儿教育 (ECE) 的教师负责监督儿童的社交技能成就，并促进有和没有特殊教育需要 (SEN) 的儿童之间的社交游戏。教师印象量表 (TIS) 是为此目的而开发的一种观察性评估。本研究旨在探讨瑞典版 TIS，TIS-S 的社会效度，并评估其在确定瑞典学前班同伴介导干预参与者方面的有效性；通过还测试内部一致性，以及量表的结构和标准相关效度。教师（N = 16）在 TIS-S 的社交游戏情境中观察有 SEN（n = 16）和没有 SEN（n = 16）的儿童，并随后回答了一项调查。对数据进行了定量和定性分析。结果表明TIS-S具有较高的内部可靠性。TIS-S 还区分了有和没有 SEN 的儿童组，这提供了结构和标准有效性的证据。社会效度得到验证，因为教师们报告说，TIS-S 适用于识别个别儿童在与同龄人互动中需要支持、规划所有儿童在社会学习环境中的适应以及反映儿童在游戏中社会行为的复杂性。