Developing a Boys Town Social Skills Assessment for Schools: Psychometric Properties and Pilot Testing

Social skills teaching is an effective intervention to support students with emotional and behavioral disorders. This paper describes the initial development and psychometric properties of the Boys Town Social Skills Assessment for Schools (BTSSA-S), a 15-item assessment intended to identify students’ social skill strengths and needs. Fifteen educators at an educational center for a residential program for at-risk youth completed the instrument. A total of 150 students were rated at two points in time, approximately 30 days apart (129 students were matched). The BTSSA-S demonstrated good test-retest reliability (ICC = .83) as well as adequate internal consistency (α = .85) for a multi-dimensional scale (three factors: behavioral compliance, on-task, and sociability). Further, scale scores are significantly correlated (r = .76) with another social skills screener, indicating convergent validity. Finally, a ROC curve discriminated significantly between students with and without a disruptive school incident and was used to determine a preliminary cutoff score for identifying those at risk for such incidents. Limitations, implications, and future research are discussed.