Analyzing of alternative models of Turkish form of social skills scale

The purpose of this study is to analyze the validity and the reliability of the Social Skills Scale, developed for preschool children, upon adapting it to Turkish language. The Universe of the study consists of the children attending to the independent kindergartens, the kindergartens within the primary or the middle schools, the kindergartens within the girls' vocational schools and the kindergartens within the private schools operating under the Ministry of National Education in Soma-Manisa. 508 childrens took part in the study. The scale applied for the analyzing of the construct validity was dichotomous yes / no questions, hence the Weighted Least Squares (WLS) estimation method was applied upon creating a tetrachoric correlation matrix. According to the results obtained, the scale is stronger in the multi-dimensional structure. The Turkish form of the scale consists of 22 articles; 8 cooperation dimension, 7 on self-control dimension and 7 on assertion dimension. The internal consistency values of the Social Skills Scale vary between .72 and .79. The total correlation of the articles varies between .30 and 51. Similar scales used previously revealed that the scale had a positive correlation. The retest results showed the consistency between the two applications. As a result it is seen that the Social Skills Scale is a qualified measuring vehicle as to measuring the cooperation, self-control and assertion of the preschool children via their parents. KEYWORDS: Preschool Education, Social Skills, Social Competence