Development and preliminary evaluation of the interpersonal problem-solving inventory for elementary school students

Several inventories have been developed to assess social problem-solving. However, these instruments originally developed for adult or adolescence and do not capture the full range of main interpersonal relationships over which elementary students resolve daily life interpersonal problems and apply elementary-age typical responses. Therefore, the development of a valid scale to measure interpersonal problem-solving ability in elementary school students is warranted.

This study aimed to develop and perform a preliminary psychometric evaluation of an interpersonal problem-solving inventory for elementary school students (IPSIE).

The IPSIE was administered to elementary student samples that consist of 516 Vietnamese elementary school students in grades 3-5. This study examined the reliabilities of International problem behaviour (IPB) and interpersonal problem-solving inventory (IPSI) as well as the construct validity of IPSI. The construct validity of IPSI was investigated by using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to explore the emerging factor structure of the data. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was utilized to fit the data.

The reliabilities of IPB and IPSI were assessed by calculating internal consistencies (Cronbach's α = 0.79 vs. 0.90, McDonald's ω = 0.79 vs. 0.82). The EFA results suggested that the IPSI has two-factor structure. The CFA was reexamined to define theory-driven five-factor structure of the IPSI's data. The CFA findings indicated that the scores of IPSI have the five-factor structure as expected with acceptable global fit indices (CFI: 0.943, TLI: 0.939, RMSEA: 0.030, and RMR: 0.046). The concurrent validity of IPSI was tested by calculating correlations between the IPSI and SPSI-R scores (r = .667) and the IPSI and SPSTE-A scores (r = .482).

These finding figures suggest that overall the scales of IPSIE are well-functioning measures with good psychometric properties. Caution and limitations of IPSIE are discussed. Future study and possible applicability are suggested.