Development of a short surrogate index for children’s socioeconomic status using house possessions and investigation of its validity

Abstract

The study described here developed a short surrogate index for the children’s socioeconomic status (SES) using house possessions and investigated its validity. In Study 1, 192 pairs of parents and their middle school-aged children participated in a questionnaire survey. Based on the results, three items regarding possessions at home were selected for the short surrogate index out of the 17 items used in the Programme for International Student Assessment. Furthermore, the short surrogate index for the children’s SES was related to family income, parents’ academic background, and hierarchy consciousness. In addition, it was found to have good test-retest reliability, thereby demonstrating its validity. To confirm that the item selection and validity in Study 1 did not involve sampling error, Study 2 investigated the reproducibility of validity with a different sample. One hundred ninetyfive pairs of parents and their middle school-based children responded to the questionnaire, and the results redemonstrated the index’s validity. Studies in different disciplines using the short surrogate index can be conducted because SES can be both the main and confounding variable.