Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Kimia Rigi ¹
• mansure shahriari ahmadi ²
• parisa Tajalli ³
• Parvaneh Ghodsi ⁴

¹ Ph.D. student of Psychology and Exceptional Children, Islamic Azad University of Central Tehran, Branch, Tehran, Iran.

² Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Social Sciences, Islamic Azad University Central Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran.

³ Faculty members of Islamic Azad University Central Tehran Branch

⁴ Assistant professor, Department of Psychology and Education of Exceptional Children, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

The purpose of the current research was to design a social cognition questionnaire for children and adolescents and to check its validity and reliability. Research method was descriptive, psychometrics type. The statistical population of the present study was all students of 9 to 17 years old in Mashhad in the year 2021-2022, of which 320 (180 girls and 140 boys) were selected by sampling.. The research instrument included a researcher-made questionnaire on the social cognition of children and adolescents. The face and content validity of the scale was obtained using the Content Validity Ratio (CVR), the construct validity of it through exploratory factor analysis, to ensure the reliability of the instrument, Crowbach's alpha coefficient and SPSS software version 26 were used. The results of exploratory factor analysis using independent varimax rotation introduced three independent factors of empathy, communication skills and theory of mind, which together explained 54.042% of the total variance of the variables. The value of Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.93, 0.78, 0.70 and 0.82 for the whole questionnaire respectively. Due to the desirable behavioral characteristics of the social cognition questionnaire for children and adolescents, this tool can be used for research and clinical applications.

Keywords

• empathy
• communication skills
• social cognition
• theory of mind