Psychometric Properties of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire for Children in a French-Speaking Population

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the psychometric properties of the French version of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ30; Rieffe et al., 2008). The EAQ30 was administered to 707 French-speaking children aged 8 to 16 years old. The original 6-factor structure was replicated in our data. The internal consistency coefficients of the EAQ30 subscales were satisfactory. We found small significant differences for gender and age. Regarding convergent validity, we found positive correlations between EAQ30 scores and emotional intelligence and negative correlations between EAQ30 scores and alexithymia. There was preliminary evidence of discriminant validity, with EAQ30 scores being weakly related to school performance, and concurrent validity, with EAQ30 scores being negatively related to somatic complaints, depression, and anxiety. Finally, except for 1 dimension, EAQ30 scores were not susceptible to social desirability. Although some weaknesses of the scale remain to be addressed, these findings support the use of the EAQ30 for research and clinical purposes.

Acknowledgments

Preparation of this article was facilitated by Grants 1.5.175.06 from the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research accorded to O. Luminet. We thank Charlotte Petitjean for her help in collecting data.

Notes

¹The translation of the questionnaire was performed according to the International Test Commission guidelines for test adaptation (Hambleton, 2001). Items were first translated into French and then back translated into English. The translation/back-translation process was conducted entirely by bilingual people and supervised by the two first authors of this article (M. Lahaye and O. Luminet). After the back translation, problematic items were reviewed, discussed, and modified.

²The translation of the questionnaire was performed according to the International Test Commission guidelines for test adaptation (Hambleton, 2001). Items were first translated into French and then back translated into English. The translation/back-translation process was conducted entirely by bilingual people and supervised by the two first authors of this article (M. Lahaye and O. Luminet). After the back translation, problematic items were reviewed, discussed, and modified.

³The translation of the questionnaire was performed according to the International Test Commission guidelines for test adaptation (Hambleton, 2001). Items were first translated into French and then back translated into English. The translation/back-translation process was conducted entirely by bilingual people and supervised by the two first authors of this article (M. Lahaye and O. Luminet). After the back translation, problematic items were reviewed, discussed, and modified.

⁴The translation of the questionnaire was performed according to the International Test Commission guidelines for test adaptation (Hambleton, 2001). Items were first translated into French and then back translated into English. The translation/back-translation process was conducted entirely by bilingual people and supervised by the two first authors of this article (M. Lahaye and O. Luminet). After the back translation, problematic items were reviewed, discussed, and modified.

^a N = 707; 365 girls, 340 boys, two unreported.

^b Standard error of skewness estimations is 0.92.

^c Standard error of kurtosis estimations is 0.18.

^d Asterisks correspond to p values for gender differences t tests.

* p < .05.

**p < .001.

* p < .001.

* p < .001.

⁵Emotion Perception: This scale concerns emotion perception in one's self as well as in others. High scores on the scale are obtained by individuals who are clear about what they feel at a particular point in time. They are also good at decoding other people's emotional expressions. In contrast, individuals with low scores on the emotion perception scale are often confused about how they feel and do not pay much attention to the emotional signals sent out by other people (Petrides, 2009, p. 59).

* p < .05.

** p < .001.

*p < .05.

**p < .001.

* p < .05.

** p < .01.

⁶We performed the same analyses separately for children (8- to 12-year-olds) and adolescents (13- to 16-year-olds). Results showed similar effect sizes in the two age groups.

⁷Discriminant validity refers to the degree to which scores on a test do not correlate with variables they are not supposed to correlate with given the nature of the construct.

* p < .05.

⁸Concurrent validity is a criterion-related validation procedure characterized by the correlation between the predictor and the criterion obtained simultaneously (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955).

⁹The congruence coefficient is an index of factor similarity. It is used to determine the factorial invariance of solutions across samples.