A Rasch measure of young children's temperament (Negative Emotionality) in Hong Kong

An aspect of child behavior and temperament, called Negative Emotionality in the literature, is very important to teachers of very young children. The Children's Behavior Questionnaire, initially designed by Rothbart, Ahadi, Hershey and Fisher (2001) for use in western countries, was modified in line with Rasch measurement theory, revised for suitability with Hong Kong preschool children, and conceptually ordered from easy to hard along a continuum of attitude/behavior for negative emotionality, before data collection. Three ordered scoring categories (never or rarely scored 1, on some occasions scored 2, and on many occasions scored 3) were used. Data were collected from preschool teachers for N = 628 preschool children from 32 schools in Hong Kong and analyzed with the 2010 Rasch unidimensional measurement model computer program (RUMM2030). The item-trait interaction probability is 0.05 (2 = 101.88, df = 80) which indicates that there is reasonable agreement about the different difficulties of the items along the scale for all the children. Results and implications are discussed, and revisions for the scale suggested.