Social Participation Questionnaire Research Articles

Social participation, identity style and identity dimensions in late adolescence among students of three types of vocational schools

Abstract Departing from the model suggested by Luyckx, Schwarz, Berzonsky et al. (2008), the relationships between identity and educational context, social participation, and identity information processing style were investigated. Participants were 972 students from six vocational schools in Poznań. The students, within these six schools, attended Grades I-III of three types of vocational schools: basic vocational schools (n=271), technical upper secondary schools (n=448), and specialized upper secondary schools (n=253). Three questionnaires were used: The Dimensions of Identity Development Scale (DIDS/PL), which measures five identity dimensions according to the concept of Luyckx, Schwarz, Berzonsky et al. (2008), Social Participation Questionnaire, developed by Brzezińska, Rękosiewicz and Hejmanowski (see Rękosiewicz, 2013b), enabling identification of the type of social participation, and the Polish adaptation of M. Berzonsky’s Identity Style Inventory 4 (ISI-4) authored by A. Senejko (2010), to examine identity styles. The results showed that the students from basic vocational schools and technical upper secondary schools were more often characterized by the normative identity style, whereas the students from specialized upper secondary schools manifested a greater tendency to engage themselves in exploration, both adaptive and ruminative.

Evaluation of the Social Participation Questionnaire in adult patients with depressive symptoms using Rasch analysis

The aim of this study was to explore the psychometric properties of the 22-item Social Participation Questionnaire (SPQ). The SPQ was administered to 789 adult primary care patients with depressive symptoms. As the items were intended to be summed together to provide total score, Rasch analysis (partial credit model) was applied to assess the overall fit of the model, individual item fit, differential item functioning (DIF), targeting of persons, response dependency, unidimensionality and person separation. To improve the scale's fit, it was necessary to re-score the response format. Two items demonstrated some DIF for gender and eight items showed DIF for age. To support the assumption of unidimensionality post hoc principal component analysis was performed. The analysis showed two subtests of the residuals with positive and negative loadings, but the person estimates derived from these two subtests were not statistically different to that derived from all items taken together. The response dependence between two items was identified; however, the magnitude of difficulty was very small. Although the questionnaire appeared to have insufficient items to assess the full spectrum of informal social contact, the SPQ was reasonably well targeted. The SPQ is a promising questionnaire for the measurement of social participation although it could benefit from the inclusion of further items to measure informal social contact. This study found support for the internal validity, internal consistency reliability, and unidimensionality. A future study will investigate whether targeting can be improved when additional items are included.

Assessing Social Participation of Students With Special Needs in Inclusive Education: Validation of the Social Participation Questionnaire

This study addresses the convergent validity of a new teacher questionnaire to assess the social participation of students with special needs in regular primary schools. The Social Participation Questionnaire (SPQ) consists of four subscales representing four key themes of social participation: friendships/relationships, contacts/interactions, student’s social self-perception, and acceptance by classmates. The study took place in Grades 1 to 3 of regular Dutch primary schools that had at least one student with an official special-needs statement. A confirmatory factor analysis using the LISREL program provided evidence for the SPQ’s convergent validity. The outcomes support the model of social participation distinguishing four key themes. The fit indexes suggest that our model is theoretically viable for Grades 1 and 2 but only partly viable for Grade 3.

Evaluating Social Participation of Pupils with Special Needs in Regular Primary Schools

The study addresses the psychometric qualities of a new teacher questionnaire, the Social Participation Questionnaire (SPQ), to assess the social participation of pupils with special needs in regular primary education. The SPQ initially consisted of 34 statements related to four key themes of social participation: “friendships/relationships,” “contacts/interactions,” “pupil’s social self-perception,” and “acceptance by classmates,” yielding four respective subscales. A nonparametric item response analysis (Mokken scale analysis) was used to examine the quality of the SPQ. Based on the Mokken scale analysis results, ten statements were removed. The resulting four subscales appeared intermediate to strong. Because the double monotonicity model, based on the Mokken scale analysis, turned out to be well-fitted for each subscale, the subscale scores are on an ordinal scale, and the separate statements are invariantly ordered. The subscale scores are comparable across pupils with and without special needs, differential item functioning appearing to be absent. Subsequent analyses supported the division of statements into the four subscales. The SPQ as a whole and its subscales were found to be reliable. Finally, as regards social participation, differences between pupils with and without special needs were clearly found.