Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Sep;30(6):1848-1869.
doi: 10.1177/10731911221127922. Epub 2022 Sep 30.

Development of the Social and Emotional Competence Assessment Battery for Adults

Sofia Oliveira  1 , Magda Sofia Roberto  1 , Ana Margarida Veiga-Simão  1 , Alexandra Marques-Pinto  1
Affiliations

Development of the Social and Emotional Competence Assessment Battery for Adults

Sofia Oliveira et al. Assessment. 2023 Sep.

Abstract

Literature has emphasized the urgency of investing in the promotion of Social and Emotional Competence (SEC) in adults. Therefore, the development of a theoretically grounded and developmentally adjusted measure that adequately assesses SEC in its different domains is needed. This study aimed to develop a self-report battery for the assessment of adults' SEC. Factor structure, reliability, and validity of the Social and Emotional Competence Assessment Battery for Adults (SECAB-A) were assessed. Seven-hundred and ninety-six adults (80.7% female) completed the SECAB-A. A subsample of 63 elementary school teachers (92.1% female) participated at two points in time and also completed external measures assessing affect, emotion regulation, and burnout symptoms, thus making it possible to test for test-retest reliability and convergent and discriminant validities. Despite sample size variation, no statistically significant differences between groups were found for the SECAB-A scales. Extraction of factors and confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesized factorial structures. Coefficient omegas suggested adequate internal consistency and scores were highly correlated between the two data collection waves, also ensuring adequate test-retest reliability. There was also evidence of the SECAB-A's convergent and discriminant validities against the external measures. Results from this study indicate that the SECAB-A is a promising measure for the adult population. Nevertheless, additional criterion-related and construct validity research is needed.

Keywords: adults; assessment; confirmatory factor analysis; psychometric study; reliability; social and emotional competence; validity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Factor Structure and Factor Loadings of the SECAB-A Intrapersonal Competence Questionnaire Note. SECAB-A = Social and Emotional Competence Assessment Battery for Adults.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Factor Structure and Factor Loadings of the SECAB-A Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire Note. SECAB-A = Social and Emotional Competence Assessment Battery for Adults.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Factor Structure and Factor Loadings of the SECAB-A Responsible Decision-Making Competence Questionnaire Note. SECAB-A = Social and Emotional Competence Assessment Battery for Adults.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Bland-Altman Plot for Comparison of 2 Methods for the SECAB-A Scales. (A) Self-regulation scale. (B) Self-Awareness Scale. (C) Conflict Management Scale. (D) Positive Relationship Scale. (E) Responsible Decision-Making Scale. Note. SECAB-A = Social and Emotional Competence Assessment Battery for Adults.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Akaike H. (1998). Information theory and an extension of the maximum likelihood principle. In Parzen E., Tanabe K., Kitagawa G. (Eds.), Selected papers of Hirotugu Akaike. Springer series in statistics (pp. 199–213). Springer. 10.1007/978-1-4612-1694-0_15 - DOI
    1. American Psychological Association. (2020). APA guidelines for psychological assessment and evaluation. https://www.apa.org/about/policy/guidelines-psychological-assessment-eva...
    1. ANACOM. (2021). Infografia: o estado das telecomunicações em Portugal e na UE [Infographic: the state of telecommunications in Portugal and in the EU]. https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1704064
    1. Aust F., Diedenhofen B., Ullrich S., Musch J. (2013). Seriousness checks are useful to improve data validity in online research. Behavior Research Methods, 45(2), 527–535. 10.3758/s13428-012-0265-2 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bardin L. (1977). Análise de conteúdo [Content Analysis]. Edições 70.

Publication types