Should We Ask the Kids? Teachers’ Perceptions of Sociometric Ratings to Understand Students’ Peer Relationships

Although sociometric ratings were once a popular assessment tool to directly assess youth’s social relationships, their use declined in recent decades. As an initial step to reconsider their use, this exploratory mixed-methods study sought to understand teachers’ perceptions of the usability, advantages, and concerns related to using a peer sociometric measure in comparison to a frequently used teacher rating scale. A sample of 145 teachers were presented with two vignettes, one for the sociometric measure and one for the teacher rating scale. Each vignette described the purpose and procedures for the measure and presented fictitious children’s scores and classroom data summaries. After reading each vignette, teachers rated the usability of each measure and answered open-ended questions about the perceived advantages and concerns related to each measure. Overall, teachers’ perceptions of the two measures were quite similar. Teachers positively rated the usability of the sociometric measure, endorsed the feasibility of sociometric ratings, and believed sociometric data would influence their decision-making. Teachers shared potential advantages of sociometric assessment that could not be achieved using teacher rating scales. Concerns related to sociometric assessment included potential negative consequences of children sharing their ratings with one another and uncertainty about the predictive value of the ratings. Given existing evidence that these concerns do not materialize into unintended consequences, the findings of this study suggest potential value in revisiting the use of sociometric procedures to better understand youth’s peer relationships.