An Assessment of the Relationship among Measures of Children's Social Competence and Children's Academic Achievement

Abstract

GREEN, KENNETH D.; FOREHAND, REX; BECK, STEVEN J.; and VOSK, BARBARA. An Assessment of the Relationship among Measures of Children's Social Competence and Children's Academic Achievement. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 1149-1156. The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the relationship among 4 measures of school-aged children's social competence (behavioral, sociometric, teacher completed, and child self-report) and their relationship to an academic measure. 116 third-grade children served as subjects. A correlational matrix and a factor analysis were performed on the data. The results indicated that children with high academic achievement scores were liked by and interacted positively with peers. Negative peer interaction was not related to popularity, while positive peer interaction was negatively correlated with peer dislike. Teacher ratings suggested that teachers can identify children who are liked and disliked by their peers. The child self-report measure produced few correlations with other measures. The factor analysis resulted in the identification of 5 factors: social status, teacher-perceived deviance, sociability, academic, and peer aggressive. Implications of the findings are discussed.