Although self-evaluative cognitions play a key role on children's motivation and achievement (Dweck, 1998, Valentine et al., 2004 and Wigfield and Eccles, 2002), few psychometrically sound measures are currently available for use with young children (Davis-Kean & Sandler, 2001). Of the scales that have been developed for children in the early school years, only a handful are based on multidimensional theoretical models that are accompanied by empirical findings (e.g., Eccles et al., 1993, Harter and Pike, 1984, Marsh et al., 1991, Marsh et al., 1998 and Pallas et al., 1990). Among these measures, the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance (PSPCSA; Harter & Pike, 1984) is the oldest and most widely used. This trend of use continues to wax. In 1999, Strein and Simonson noted over 135 references and over 34 published studies using the instrument. Since that time, the Social Sciences Citation Index (2006) has documented that the measure has been referenced in an additional 149 journal articles. The PSPCSA's first/second-grade form for instance, has been used (a) in different cultural settings (Chae & Ceci, 2005), (b) with children exposed to violence (Baily et al., 2006 and Ratner et al., 2006), (c) to examine aspects of positive parenting and their associations with children's socioeomotional functioning (Davidov & Grusec, 2006), (d) to examine children's views of peer competence and aggressive behaviors (Cavell and Hughes, 2000 and Hughes et al., 2001), and (e) to study developmental changes in self-concept in the first years of schooling (Bouffard, Marcoux, Vezeaw, & Bordeleau, 2003).
The PSPCSA is a 4-subscale,“developmentally appropriate downward extension” (Harter & Pike, 1984, p. 1970) of a multidimensional self-concept measure for older elementary school children in grades 3–6 (Perceived Competence Scale for Children [PCSC]; Harter, 1982). The PSPCSA is a shorter, individually administered assessment that includes two separate forms, one for preschool/kindergarten (PK) and a second for first/second (FS) grade. The two forms have the same number of items, each of which is matched to a pictorial representation intended to facilitate use of the measure with preliterate children.
Both forms of the scale assess perceptions across the same subdomains (i.e., Cognitive Competence, Physical Competence, Peer Acceptance, and Maternal Acceptance) but include different sets of items that presumably reflect skill differences in competence and acceptance between the preschool and early elementary school years. However, there is no clear empirical or theoretical rationale for the selection of items in each of the subscales.
Reviews of self-concept scales for young children have consistently highlighted the PSPCSA (Byrne, 1996, Davis-Kean, 1995 and Wylie, 1989), and recently it has been noted that the measure's “multiple advantages” include a multidimensional structure and appropriateness for children who may not have well-developed reading skills (Winters, Myers, & Proud, 2002, p. 1173). However, the need for independent construct validation of this measure also has been emphasized (Byrne, 1996 and Sheridan, 1992), particularly because the factor structure of the two forms of the scale was established with small samples of predominately middle-class Caucasian children (Harter & Pike, 1984).
Although the structure of the PK form of the PSPCSA has been examined in recent studies (e.g., Fantuzzo et al., 1996, Mantzicopoulos et al., 2004 and Strein and Simonson, 1999), there is limited evidence on the dimensionality of the FS form. In addition, even though the scale has been used to investigate gender differences on self-perceptions of competence (e.g., Anderson and Adams, 1985, Harter and Chao, 1992, Jamubunathan and Norris, 2000, Mantzicopoulos, in press and Verschueren et al., 1998) there is no evidence that the measure's structure is invariant across males and females. In the present investigation we use data from groups of prior Head Start attendees collected at first and second grades to address these issues.
