Psychometric properties of teacher report of social-emotional assets and resilience scale in preschoolers and elementary school children

Research in psychology has evolved over the decades creating a movement of greater emphasis on the assessment of strengths and positive characteristics, rather than focusing on risk factors and the diagnosis of pathology. The Social-Emotional Assets and Resilience Scale (SEARS) is an instrument for assessing the children’s strengths, resilience and adaptability in daily life, presenting a form completed by teachers. This study presents the factorial structure of the Portuguese version of teacher-report of SEARS and examines its psychometric properties, namely internal consistency and convergent validity, with a sample of 235 children (116 boys and 119 girls) aged between 5 and 10 years (M = 7.51, SD = 1.63). The factorial structure suggested by Merrell et al. (2011) was tested through a Confirmatory Factor Analyzes, with 41 items making up four factors (responsibility, self-competence, self-regulation, and empathy). In general, our findings support a final structure of 40 items divided into four subscales and provides evidence on the psychometric quality of this instrument. Limitations and future research needs are discussed.