Teachers' perceptions of school-age children's compition and mental health

The purpose of this study was to examine the dimensions that characterize children's individual competence in the school context. Fifty eight elementary school teachers were first asked to freely describe a boy and a girl whom they considered to be competent and well adjusted, and second to give the profile of such a child using the California Child Q‐set (CCQ). Third, they were asked to nominate children in their classroom who would best fit their criteria of competence and children who least fit these criteria, and to fill out Achenbach's Teacher's Report Form (TRF) for 108 of these children. These children's sociometric status was also assessed. Teachers' CCQ profile revealed that they consider those behaviours most positively defining of the competent child that reflect the extent to which the child can become actively involved in the work of the classroom, and most negatively defining those behaviours that are indicative of emotional and behavioural problems. The most frequently used categories in the teachers' free descriptions were extraversion, agreeableness, school performance, attitudes and conscientiousness. The comparison with the TRF of the two groups of children indicated that the competent group had significantly higher scores on academic performance, and lower scores on the attention and social problems syndromes. Competent children had a significantly higher sociometric status. Results are discussed in light of a definition of competence as a pattern of effective performance in the environment, evaluated from the perspective of development in ecological and cultural context.