This study is aimed to examine the constructs of emotion regulation ability for 18∼36 month toddlers as well as to develop a measure assessing their emotion regulation ability, which is expected to be used by teachers in daycare center for education...
This study is aimed to examine the constructs of emotion regulation ability for 18∼36 month toddlers as well as to develop a measure assessing their emotion regulation ability, which is expected to be used by teachers in daycare center for educational setting. For this purpose, this study includes research questions for the following subject:
1. What does the questionnaire contents of 'Emotion Regulation Ability Rating Scale for toddlers' consist of?
2. How is the reliability and validity of 'Emotion Regulation Ability Rating Scale for toddlers'?
2-1. How is the reliability of 'Emotion Regulation Ability Rating Scale for toddlers'?
2-2. How is the construct validity of 'Emotion Regulation Ability Rating Scale for toddlers'?
2-3. How is the criterion-related validity of 'Emotion Regulation Ability Rating Scale for toddlers'?
In order to examine the first research question, this study defines the notion and the constructs of emotion regulation ability in early childhood through the analysis of related literature and existing measures, through which specific questionnaires are developed . Six toddlers in the age between 12 months to 36 months and one in the age of 40 months in two daycare centers in Seoul are monitored and their eligibility for the measure of emotion regulation ability is determined through the interview of daycare teachers. Based on the interview, the toddlers in the age between 18 months and 36 months are finally monitored for the measure of emotion regulation ability. Those monitorings are analyzed to further improve and amend the questionnaire. In addition, after twelve experts in early childhood education and eight teachers have examined the content validity of developed questions, the preliminary questionnaire was created.
For the second research question accessing reliability and validity of the measure, the developed questionnaire was distributed to those who teach 18∼36 month toddlers. With the collected data, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted. And, the criterion-related validity of the measure was obtained.
1. Exploring questionnaires of 'Emotion Regulation Ability Rating Scale for toddlers'.
The measure of emotion regulation ability of toddlers is composed of three constructs which are express of self emotion, emotional management, and emotional cope. With content validity which is by experts of early childhood education teachers and directors, 34 questions across three constructs were developed. After exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the final 30 questions across three constructs were developed.
Fist, express of self emotion is the capability of a toddler to express emotion such as happy, sorrow, anger, and fear. The tools are designed to measure the expressed emotion generated by internal condition if the origin of a emotion lise inside and the expressed emotion generated by external condition if the origin lise outside (or other people).
Second, emotional management consists of compliance and impulse control. The impulse control consists of resistance to temptation and negative emotion control.
Third, emotional cope consists of emotion change and emotional problem solving. Emotion change is the strategy to get accustomed to the current environment by suppressing and changing the negative emotion such as anger, sorrow, and/or fear which leads to positive emotion. Emotional problem solving is the communication procedure by showing level of emotion under favorable or unfavorable condition. It is intended to direct others to continue the favorable attitude to me and to prevent unfavorable behavior. The communication can be done by face expression, gesture, or the tone of voice which are classified based on the way of expressing positive and negative contents in the questionnaires. The difference between express of self emotion and problem solving is that the expression of self emotion is focused on the emotion expression and emotional problem solving is, by expressing the emotion about a situation to others, focused on preventing the situation that is not convenient and encouraging the condition that is favorable.
2. The validation of 'Emotion Regulation Ability Rating Scale for toddlers'.
In order to prove the validity of rating scale for the emotion regulation ability of toddlers, the construct validity was assessed by exploratory and confirmatory factory analyses, as well as the criterion-related validity of the measure was examined. Also, the reliability of the measure was assessed by the internal consistency coefficient which was shown as a value of Cronbach's α.
First, the Cronbach's α for the final questionnaire with 30 questions within 3 factors was .90 and each Cronbach's α for three factors ranged from .73 to .78(p<.001). These values prove that the measure is reliable enough to evaluate the emotion regulation ability of toddlers.
Second, conducted exploratory factor analysis with the entire 30 questions, they were classified into 3 factors. Specifically, 8 questions were combined as expression of self emotion, 15 questions as emotional management, and 7 questions as emotional cope. Next, confirmatory factor analysis with these three factors was conducted in order to confirm the result from exploratory factor analysis. As a result, the fit indices for the model with three factors turned out acceptable (x2(629)=2815, NFI=.946, CFI=.953, TLI=.951, RMSEA=.076). It shows a strong correlation between three factors and actual emotion regulation ability rating scale of toddlers.
Third, criterion-related validity was confirmed through comparison with Infant Toddler Social-Emotional assessment's measure and it is turned out objective and trustworthy to evaluate emotion regulation ability rating scale.