Assessing Young Children's Views of Their Academic, Social, and Emotional Lives: An Evaluation of the Self-Perception Scales of the Berkeley Puppet Interview

Abstract

In a prospective, longitudinal study we examined the psychometric properties of the self-perception scales of the Berkeley Puppet Interview (BPI). A total sample of 97 young children were assessed with the BPI at 3 time points: preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. The BPI assesses young children's self-perceptions of their school adjustment in 6 domains: academic competence, achievement motivation, social competence, peer acceptance, depression-anxiety, and aggression-hostility. Results showed that 4 1/2- to 7 1/2-year-olds possess a multidimensional self-concept that can be reliably measured and that the BPI is sensitive to normative changes and individual differences in young boys' and girls' views of themselves. Support for the method's validity was derived from consistent and meaningful patterns of convergence between children's self-perceptions and ratings by adult informants--mothers, fathers, and teachers--as well as standardized test scores. In fact, in this study, the concordance between young children's self-reports and parallel ratings by teachers or mothers were consistently as strong as if not stronger than the concordance between mothers' and teachers' ratings.

Empirical evidence of cognitive vulnerability for depression among children and adolescents: A cognitive science and developmental perspective

“…Table 1 presents prospective studies that explore self-perception and depression. Evidence supporting negative self-perception as a proximal vulnerability to depressive symptoms is found in eight (Cole, Jacquez, & Maschman, 2001;Cole, Martin, & Powers, 1997;Cole, Martin, Powers, & Truglio, 1996;Kistner, Balthazor, Risi, & Burton, 1999;Measelle et al, 1998;Ohannessian, Lerner, Lerner, & von Eye, 1999; of the fourteen studies. Mixed evidence is found in three studies (Cole, Martin, Peeke, Seroczynski, & Fier, 1999;Hoffman, Cole, Martin, Tram, & Seroczynski, 2000;Kistner, DavidFerdon, Repper, & Joiner, 2006), with an additional three studies (Cole, Martin, Peeke, Seroczynski, & Hoffman, 1998;Lewinsohn et al, 1994;McGrath & Repetti, 2002) presenting evidence that depression predicts self-perception.…”

Children’s voices – Differentiating a child perspective from a child’s perspective

“…First the Berkeley Puppet Interview, which is a technique originally developed by Ablow and Measelle [32] was used. The technique has been used in several studies in an attempt to gain self-reports on, for example, children"s perceptions of their academic, social and emotional lives [33] and temperament [34]. The scenario, in our example involves one of the puppets acting as the preschool teacher and the other as a child.…”

Externalizing behavior trajectories: The role of parenting, sibling relationships and child personality

“…As children's reports of their sibling relationships have been demonstrated to be reliable only at the age of 4 or above (Measelle, Ablow, Cowan, & Cowan, 1998), the children were only asked to assess their sibling relationships at T2 (school visit) by completing the Hostility and Affection scales of the Sibling Relationships Inventory (SRI, Boer, Westenberg, McHale, Updegraff, & Stocker, 1997). The SRI has been demonstrated to give a meaningful evaluation of sibling relationships for children as young as 4 (Boer et al, 1997).…”