Social validity and psychometric properties of Teacher Impression Scale – A pilot study

Figures & data

Table 1. Teachers’ (N = 16) mean scorings and standard deviations from observations with TIS-S for children with SEN, children without SEN, and all children; factor loadings from PCA

Type of Social Behaviour	Children with SEN (n = 16)		Children without SEN (n = 16)		Children (N = 32)		Factor loadings
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
1. The child converses appropriately.	2.69	.94	4.38	.88	3.53	1.24	.85
2. The child takes turns when playing.	2.75	1.00	4.31	.79	3.53	1.19	.88
3. The child plays cooperatively.	2.75	1.00	4.44	.81	3.59	1.24	.91
4. The child varies social behaviour appropriately.	2.38	.80	4.13	1.02	3.25	1.27	.89
5. The child is persistent at social attempts.	2.38	.61	4.44	.72	3.41	1.24	.94
6. The child spontaneously responds to peers.	2.44	1.09	4.19	.83	3.31	1.30	.90
7. The child appears to have fun.	3.88	.95	4.81	.40	4.34	.86	.81
8. Peers interacting with the child appear to have fun.	3.44	.96	4.44	.81	3.94	1.01	.75
9. The child continues an interaction once it has begun.	2.38	.88	4.50	.63	3.44	1.31	.91
10. Peers seek out the child for social play.	2.38	1.14	4.13	.88	3.25	1.34	.83
11. The child uses appropriate social behaviour to begin an interaction.	2.38	.95	4.38	.80	3.37	1.33	.92
12. The child enters play activities without disrupting the group.^a	3.06	1.23	4.55	.64	3.80	1.22	.82
13. The child suggests new play ideas for a play group.	1.94	.85	4.38	.80	3.16	1.48	.84
14. The child smiles appropriately at peers during play.	3.31	1.07	4.63	.61	3.97	1.09	.77
15. The child shares play materials with peers.	2.44	.96	4.19	.75	3.31	1.23	.90
16. The child engages in play activities where social interaction might occur.	2.44	1.09	4.56	.81	3.50	1.43	.89

Note. TIS-S = Teacher Impression Scale Swedish version; SEN = special educational needs; PCA = principal component analysis; M = mean; SD = standard deviation. Likert scale: min = 1, max = 5.

^aOne missing value on item 12 is replaced with series mean.

Figure 1. The Cohen’s d from observations with Teacher Impression Scale Swedish version (TIS-S) between children without special educational needs (SEN) and children with SEN is shown in the above Gardner-Altman estimation plot. Both groups are plotted on the left axes; the mean difference is plotted on a floating axis on the right as a bootstrap sampling distribution. The mean difference is depicted as a dot; the 95% confidence interval is indicated by the ends of the vertical error bar (Ho et al. 2019).

Table 2. Teachers’ (N = 16) perceptions of using TIS-S for social play observations in inclusive preschools

	Not at all	To some extent	To high extent
Agreement …
with previous understanding of the child’s social skills	-	7	9
Useful …
to observe children’s interaction	-	-	16
to identify children’s strengths	-	7	9
to assess children’s needs of support	-	5	11

Note. TIS-S = Teacher Impression Scale Swedish version.

Table 3. Teachers’ (N = 16) perceptions of using TIS-S for social play observations in inclusive preschools

	Yes	No	Missing	Comments
Applicable for identifying needs to develop …
support for child with SEN	15	1
support for the group	11	5
the learning environment	7	9
Do you miss any items in TIS-S?	1	14	1	If the child needs support from an adult to get into play
Do you have any objections to TIS-S as an observation tool?	4	12		The word ‘appropriately’ difficult to understand (n = 2) Good instrument to observe what is challenging for children in interactions (n = 1) Difficult to answer item 12 ‘The child enters play activities without disrupting the group’ as the teachers sometimes start the play activity with a group of children, i.e. the child is already there (n = 1)
Do you have any further views on TIS-S?	5	11		Five minutes not enough for observations (n = 1) Good for observation of social play (n = 4), of which (n = 2) considered it time effective Sometimes difficult to get other children to play with child with SEN (n = 1)

Note. TIS-S = Teacher Impression Scale Swedish version; SEN = special educational needs.

Ho, J., T. Tumkaya, S. Aryal, H. Choi, and A. Claridge-Chang. 2019. “Moving beyond P Values: Everyday Data Analysis with Estimation Plots.” Nature Methods 1548–7105. doi:https://doi.org/10.1101/377978.

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