Description
The DESSA comprises 72 items and covers eight dimensions of within-child protective factors labeled: Self-
awareness, Social-Awareness, Self-Management, Goal-Directed Behavior, Relationship Skills, Personal
Responsibility, Decision Making, Optimistic Thinking (Lebuffe et al., 2009). All informants (child, parents, and
teachers) indicate how often the student has engaged in a given behavior over the past four weeks on a 5-point
Likert-type scale. Scores are standardized and norm-referenced and can be categorized (based on T-score /C0higher
scores depicting higher competencies) into those that are strengths, typical, or needs for instruction and thus can
guide strategies to promote these competencies in schools, classrooms, and individuals. The eight dimensions of
the DESSA (Lebuffe et al., 2009) together yield a social emotional composite score.
The DESSA has been used with a variety of prevention and intervention initiatives ( Woodland et al., 2011 ),
emphasizing the importance of social /C0emotional learning in the determination of school-readiness and predic-
tion of academic success ( Denham & Brown, 2010 ), as well as examining social /C0emotional factors related to
resilience and their relation to problem behaviors ( Naglieri, LeBuffe, & Shapiro, 2010 ).
Sample
The standardization sample consisted of 2500 children from the U.S. (representative according to gender, race,
ethnicity, residence, and poverty status) ( Naglieri et al., 2010 ).
Reliability
Internal Consistency
Cronbach alpha coefficients for the DESSA composite strengths score were .98 for parent raters and .99 for
teacher raters. Alpha coefficients for the subscales were as follows (for parent and teacher raters respectively) .82
and .89 for Self-Awareness , .84 and .91 for Social Awareness , .86 and .92 for Self-Management , .88 and .93 for Goal-
Directed Behavior , .89 and .94 for Relationship Skills , .86 and .92 for Personal Responsibility , .85 and .92 for Decision
Making , and .82 and .89 for Optimistic Thinking (Lebuffe et al., 2009).
Test/C0Retest
The DESSA test /C0retest reliability coefficients over the short term ranged from .79 to .90 for parents and from
.86 to .94 for teachers (Lebuffe et al., 2009).
Validity
Convergent/Concurrent
Nickerson and Fishman (2009) using a sample of 227 participants (94 teachers and 133 parents), reported posi-
tive correlations for both parents and teachers between the DESSA and all subscales of the Behavioral and
Emotional Rating Scales-2 (BERS /C02;Epstein, 2004 ) and the adaptive skills subscales of the Behavior Assessment
System for Children-2 (BASC-2; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004 ). Correlations ranged from .41 to .77 ( N589) for
the parent DESSA and BERS-2 subscales; from .49 to .78 ( N559) for the teacher DESSA and BERS-2 subscales;
from .42 to .71 ( N575) for the parent DESSA and BASC-2 Adaptive Skills subscale; and from .62 to .85 ( N565)
for the teacher DESSA and BASC-2 Adaptive Skills subscale.
Divergent/Discriminant
The DESSA total protective factor scale and subscales correlated negatively with the BASC-2 behavioral symp-
toms index and clinical subscales (except for the Anxiety, Somatization, and Withdrawal subscales ( Nickerson &
Fishman, 2009 ).
Construct/Factor Analytic
No factor analytic findings have been reported to-date.
Criterion/Predictive
Scores on the DESSA were able to differentiate students who were identified as having social, emotional or
behavioral disorders from their non-identified peers (Lebuffe et al., 2009).313 MEASURES REVIEWED HERE
III. EMOTION REGULATION