Factor Structure of the Social Skills Rating System Across Child Gender and Ethnicity

Abstract

The Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) provides a multi-rater assessment of child social behaviors that influence the development of social competence and adaptive functioning. This study examined whether the items on the teacher version of the SSRS provide reasonable indicators of the three first-order social skills dimensions proposed by the authors. In addition, multi-group methods of confirmatory factor analysis were used to investigate the invariance of factor loadings across ethnicity and gender. Results support the presence of three factors that were invariant for White and non-White groups and nearly invariant for boys and girls.