Validity and Reliability of the Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEACh) in Iranian 8-11 Year Old Normal Students

Abstract

Background: There is no valid and reliable Persian tool to exclusively assess all of the components of attention. Objectives: The aim of this study was to define content validity and reliability of the Test of everyday attention for children (TEA-Ch) in Iranian normal children aged 8 - 11 years. In addition, we defined the construct validity of TEA-Ch with four subtests of Wechsler intelligence scale for children. Materials and Methods: Ninety-six 8 - 11 year old students in Tehran filled the first version of TEA-Ch (A) and four subscales of Wechsler’s intelligence scale for children. Thirty- five students were simultaneously scored by two raters. Moreover, the second version of the test (B) was administered on 18 students within two weeks after the first version. The intraclass correlation coefficient was calculated for test-retest and inter-rater reliability of the raw scores in each of the TEA-Ch subtests. Discriminate validity between the TEA-Ch and the four subscales of the Wechsler’s intelligence scale for children-fourth edition (WISC-IV) was assessed, using Pearson’s correlation of SPSS Version 16. Results: The experts confirmed the content validity of the TEA-Ch after translating some items and modifying them based on Iranian language and culture. The moderate to good test-retest reliability was indicated with the ICC from 0.40 to 0.82. Moreover, the relationship between the scores of the two raters in TEA-Ch was 0.78 to 1, indicating excellent inter-rater reliability. Only five subtests of TEA-Ch were correlated with Wechsler’s subscales (r = -0.314 to 0.339). Conclusions: According to the results, the test is valid and reliable and can be used for normal Iranian children. Furthermore, attention needs to be assessed by special tools and the results revealed that TEA-Ch is designed to achieve this goal.