Structured observation of children’s play with Teacher Impression Scale : a test among Swedish preschool teachers

• Children with special educational needs (SEN) are often less socially engaged than their typically developing peers. To design intervention programs to support social engagement in early intervention programs, it is important to have an assessment that is reliable and feasible for teacher to use in classrooms. The Teacher Impression Scale (TIS) is a 16 item scale (McConnell & Odom, 1999) designed to measure social engagement. The aim of the present study was to test the reliability of a Swedish version of the TIS for identifying children who might be in need of a social competence intervention and to assess its acceptability among teachers. Teachers (N=16) rated children (N=32) with and without SEN with TIS and rated the acceptability of the assessment. The results showed that TIS has high internal validity (α = 0.97), supported identification of suitable participants, and was perceived positively by teachers.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

Keyword

specialpedagogik

Special Education

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)