Aberrant behavior of preschool children: Evaluation of questionnaire

Abstract

In the study metric characteristics of children aberrant behavior questionnaire were analyzed. The analysis was performed on the sample of 1.165 children, aged 4-7, in preschool institutions in several towns of Vojvodina. The questionnaire contained 36 items of the Likert-type scale and was filled in by one parent of each child. The authors examined main metric characteristics of the complete questionnaire, as well as individual items under the Rasche’s measurement model. Generally, parents seldom notice aberrant behavior in their children. Most frequently they notice stubbornness, while very rarely torturing of animals. The item discrimination, on the whole, was found satisfying. The reliability of the questionnaire is 0.84., and all indicators of misfit are within satisfactory ranges. According to differential functioning of the items, the authors found gender and age specificities of parents’ evaluation of aberrant behavior of their children. Parents often notice stubbornness and moldiness in girls, and aggression in boys. According to the parent’s observations, younger children are characterized by nail nibbling, ticklishness, and fearfulness, whereas older children show a tendency to force their way by crying, waywardness and bed-wetting. By means of factor analysis of the items, three principal facets of aberrant behavior were determined: overindulgence, shyness and quarrelsomeness. Cross validation (hold out) showed that these three facets were robust in relation to the selection of the sample.

Keywords

• aberrant behavior
• Rasch’s model
• differential functioning of items
• cross validation