DSECS-S (Delaware Social-Emotional Competency Scale)
Developer: Bear, Yang, Harris, Mantz, Hearn, Boyer | Year: 2017.0
Overview
The Delaware Social-Emotional Competency Scale (DSECS-S) assesses students’ social-emotional competencies that are aligned with the CASEL framework. It was designed to be used by schools to monitor programs that develop social-emotional competencies.
Key Details
Grade Level
Assessment Type
Domains Assessed
Respondent
Method
Cost
No Cost
Time per Student
unknown
Items
16.0
Item Format
Likert
Approach
Protective
Populations
Students in grades 3 to 12 in 126 schools in Delaware (N=32,414).
Scoring
Overall Scores
Total
Subscale Scores
Responsible Decision-Making
Relationship Skills
Self-Management
Social Awareness
Scoring Procedures
Automatic
Interpretive Information
Total scores in each
Psychometric Properties
Reliability
Internal consistency (alpha) coefficients range from 0.58 to 0.69 for the subscale scores and 0.84 for the total score (Mantz et al., 2016).
Validity
Items were constructed by an expert panel composed of a university professor, university staff, graduate research assistants, and a representative of the Delaware Department of Education. Items were developed based on CASEL's 2012 social-emotional competency framework (Mantz et al, 2016).
Items were revised based on readability and reviewed by several teachers (Mantz et al, 2016).
Confirmatory factor analysis was used to support a hierarchical structure with four subscales scores and an second-order social-emotional competency scale. Factor structure was invariant across grade level, race, and gender (Bear et al., 2017; Mantz et al., 2016).
Total scores correlated positively with student self-reports of cognitive, behavioral, and emotional engagement. School-level scores correlated with academic achievement and with suspensions/expulsions in the anticipated directions (Mantz et al, 2016).
References
Primary Citation
Mantz, L.S., Bear, G.G., Yang, C., & Harris, A. (2018). The Delaware Social-Emotional Competency Scale (DSECS-S): Evidence of validity and reliability. Child Indicators Research, 11, 137–157. https://doi-org/10.1007/s12187-016-9427-6