The development and promotion of social-emotional skills in childhood and adolescence contributes to subsequent well-being and positive life outcomes. However, the assessment of these skills is associated with conceptual and methodological challenges. This review discusses how social-emotional skill measurement in youth could be improved in terms of skills’ conceptualization and classification, and in terms of assessment techniques and methodologies. The first part of the review discusses various conceptualizations of social-emotional skills, demonstrates their overlap with related constructs such as emotional intelligence and the Big Five personality dimensions, and proposes an integrative set of social-emotional skill domains that has been developed recently. Next, methodological approaches that are innovative and may improve social-emotional assessments are presented, illustrated by concrete examples. We discuss how these innovations could advance social-emotional assessments, and demonstrate links to similar issues in related fields. We conclude the review by providing several concrete assessment recommendations that follow from this discussion.

Abstract. Whereas the structure of individual differences in personal attributes is well understood in adults, much less work has been done in children and adolescents. On the assessment side, numerous instruments are in use for children but they measure discordant attributes, ranging from one single factor (self-esteem; grit) to three factors (social, emotional, and academic self-efficacy) to five factors (strength and difficulties; Big Five traits). To construct a comprehensive measure for large-scale studies in Brazilian schools, we selected the eight most promising instruments and studied their structure at the item level (Study 1; N = 3,023). The resulting six-factor structure captures the major domains of child differences represented in these instruments and resembles the well-known Big Five personality dimensions plus a negative self-evaluation factor. In a large representative sample in Rio de Janeiro State (Study 2; N = 24,605), we tested a self-report inventory (SENNA1.0) assessing these six dimensions of socio-emotional skills with less than 100 items and found a robust and replicable structure and measurement invariance across grades, demonstrating feasibility for large-scale assessments across diverse student groups in Brazil. Discussion focuses on the contribution to socio-emotional research in education and its measurement as well as on limitations and suggestions for future research.

Likert-type self-report scales are frequently used in large-scale educational assessment of social-emotional skills. Self-report scales rely on the assumption that their items elicit information only about the trait they are supposed to measure. However, different response biases may threaten this assumption. Specifically, in children, the response style of acquiescence is an important source of systematic error. Balanced scales, including an equal number of positively and negatively keyed items, have been proposed as a solution to control for acquiescence, but the reasons why this design feature worked from the perspective of modern psychometric models have been underexplored. Three methods for controlling for acquiescence are compared: classical method by partialling out the mean; an item response theory method to measure differential person functioning (DPF); and multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) with random intercept. Comparative analyses are conducted on simulated ratings and on self-ratings provided by 40,649 students (aged 11-18) on a fully balanced 30-item scale assessing conscientious selfmanagement. Acquiescence bias was explained as DPF and it was demonstrated that: the acquiescence index is highly related to DPF; balanced scales produce scores controlled for DPF; and MIRT factor scores are highly related to scores controlled for DPF and the random intercept is highly related to DPF.

Abstract. Individuals differ in the way they use rating scales to describe themselves, and these differences are particularly pronounced in children and early adolescents. One promising remedy is to correct (or ''anchor'') an individual's responses according to the way they use the scale when they rate an anchoring vignette (a set of hypothetical targets differing on the attribute of interest). Studying adolescents' self-reports of their socio-emotional attributes, we compared traditional self-report scores with vignette-corrected scores in terms of reliability (internal consistency), discriminant validity (scale intercorrelations), and criterion validity (predicting achievement test scores in language and math). A large and representative sample of 12th grade Brazilian students (N = 8,582, 62% female, mean age 18.2) were administered a Portugueselanguage self-report inventory assessing social-emotional skills related to the Big Five personality dimensions. Correcting scores according to vignette ratings led to increases in the reliability of scales measuring Conscientiousness and Openness, but discriminant validity and criterion validity increased only when each scale was corrected using its own corresponding vignette set. Moreover, accuracy in rating the vignettes was correlated with language achievement test scores, suggesting that verbal factors play a role in providing both normative vignette ratings of others and self-reports that are reliable and valid.

Brazil underwent a large trade liberalization process in the 1990s. Over the period, manufacturing employment decreased significantly, generating public debate on the need to revert liberalization. This paper aims to identify the actual effect of trade liberalization on employment, separating it from exchange rate movements using a gross job flow approach. Our novel dataset covers all sectors and formally registered enterprises, and we use new sector specific exchange rate data. Our estimates suggest that greater openness reduce jobs through increased job destruction, with no effect on job creation, but the exchange rate matters also. Depreciations expand the number of jobs in manufacturing by increasing creation, with no effect on destruction.Trade liberalization, Exchange rate, Gross job flows, Brazil,

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Whereas the structure of individual differences in many social and emotional attributes is well understood in adults, much less work has been done in children and adolescents. The main goals of this research were to specify the major content domains that are assessed across multiple socioemotional instruments (self-esteem, grit, self-efficacy, strengths and difficulties, Big Five) in research in the United States and Europe, to test them in a less developed context with considerable educational challenges (Brazilian schools). We selected the five most promising instruments and studied their structure at the item level in a large sample of Brazilian school students (N = 3,023). The extracted factors to capture the major domains of child differences represented in these instruments closely resembled the Big Five personality dimensions. We discuss the contribution of our findings to the assessment of socio-emotional skills in education research, as well as limitations of the current study, and suggestions for future research.

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