Child-Report Data and Assessment of the Social Environment in Schools

Objectives. This study tested the quality of data collected with the online Elementary School Success Profile (ESSP) for Children from a diverse sample of 1,172 third through fifth graders. Methods. Mplus confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) procedures for ordinal and clustered data were used. Results. Of 80 original items, 61 loaded on 13 dimensions in a first-order model that had good fit in 3 random subsamples. Children in Grades 3 through 5 may not be reliable reporters about neighborhood adults' caring. However, 12 statistically sound and independent dimensions related to school, peers, family, and well-being were obtained. Conclusions. The ESSP for Children provides school staff with quality data to use in conjunction with family and teacher ESSP data to guide intervention choices in schools.