This article was adapted from a thesis by Bo Kyoung Jin in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the dissertation at Eulji University.
The aim of this study was to develop a self-control competency scale for school-aged children and to confirm its reliability and validity.
This study involved methodological research to verify the reliability and validity of a self-control competency scale for school-aged children. Data were collected from 438 students in the fifth and sixth grades of elementary school.
The self-control competency scale was composed of 13 items and six subscales (control of relationship with one’s teacher, problem-solving, peer empathy, control of relationships with one’s peers, impulse control, and emotional control). The internal consistency reliability of the scale was evaluated using Cronbach’s α, which was .83 for the entire scale and ranged from .65 to .76 for the subscales. The model of six subscales was validated by CFA (CMIN/df=1.977;
This scale can be used as a valid and reliable instrument for examining self-control competency among late-school-aged children.
Self-control refers to the ability to control impulses when faced with challenges or temptations, and is closely related to physiological and psychological well-being [
Efforts to develop tools to measure self-control began with observations of children made by a teacher or parent. In addition, a method was developed of directly observing a child’s behavior in response to a given situation, and a self-reporting scale was also subsequently developed [
The self-control scale developed by Grasmick et al. [
In Korea, a 43-item scale was developed through field research among elementary school students [
The scales described above have been used to measure self-control. However, 15 to 30 years have passed since these instruments were developed, and changes over time in the situations requiring self-control have yet to be reflected in the available instruments. The measurement of self-control needs to be based on prompts appropriate to the times. Previously developed scales also differ from each other in terms of measurements. Scales developed on a theoretical basis need to be verified in the field. In addition, for scales developed only through field studies, research is needed to validate whether the characteristics described in the literature are confirmed in the field. Furthermore, for translated scales, the sub-factors of the original scales are reduced and the target population of the measurement scale is different [
The purpose of this study was to develop a self-control competency measurement scale for late-school-aged children and to verify its reliability and validity.
Self-control competency refers to the ability to control one’s own behaviors as appropriate for a given situation and to refrain from impulsive behavior or immediate satisfaction in order to obtain better results in the future [
This study was conducted in eight steps using the scale development procedure presented by DeVellis [
In order to confirm the properties of late-school-aged children’s self-control competency, a hybrid model was applied combining a literature review and field survey [
Second, focus group interviews were conducted among 20 elementary school students in fifth to sixth grade. The interviews were conducted in four groups and lasted, on average, for 25 minutes. The interviews were stopped when the participants no longer spoke or when there were duplicate opinions in response to the following open-ended questions: “What do you think self-control is?”, “In what cases have you experienced self-control?”, and “In what cases did you need self-control?”. The contents of the interview were recorded and transcribed with the consent of the participants and their legal guardians.
Content validity was evaluated twice to test whether the 92 items preliminarily extracted from previous scales properly included the content to be measured. Content validity was initially evaluated by two professors of pediatric nursing, one middle school health teacher, one elementary school health teacher, one elementary school teacher, and one nursing researcher with experience in scale development, totaling six persons. The content validity index (CVI) was calculated using a structured questionnaire [
A pilot test was conducted to revisit the feasibility of the study and the form and method of data collection. The degree of understanding of each item, the length of each item, the font and font size of the items, the method of displaying the response, the placement of each item, and participants’ degree of understanding were investigated with an open-ended questionnaire.
The criteria for inclusion were students in the fifth and sixth grades of elementary school in three metropolitan cities. Participants were required to understand the content of this study, to listen to an explanation of the purpose of the study, and to agree to participate with informed consent from their guardians. A pilot study was conducted with 22 participants based on the same inclusion criteria [
To evaluate test-retest reliability, data were collected from 30 people through convenience sampling among the participants of this survey in May 2020.
The data collection period was from December 3, 2019 to May 11, 2020. This study was conducted after receiving approval (EU19-95) from the Institutional Review Board of Eulji University. After explaining to the participants that they could withdraw if they chose not to participate voluntarily, informed consent was obtained from the legal guardian and the participants.
Data analysis was performed using SPSS/WIN 25.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) with the AMOS module. First, the general characteristics of the participants were presented in terms of frequency and percentage. The homogeneity of the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) group and the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) group was tested using the
Fourth, EFA and CFA were performed to confirm construct validity [
Fifth, the convergent validity and discriminant validity were checked. Item convergence was tested by the standardized lambda value, average variance extracted (AVE), and conceptual reliability (CR). Discriminant validity was tested with the AVE, correlation coefficient (
Internal consistency reliability was analyzed using Cronbach’s α, and test-retest reliability was analyzed by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) [
In several studies, the self-control scale developed by Nam and Ok [
First, a literature review was conducted to analyze the domestic and international literature. The number of domestic documents searched was 644. After excluding duplicates and reviewing titles, abstracts, and texts, 38 original articles were finally selected, of which one described scale development, four dealt with translation of a scale from a foreign language, and 33 papers confirmed the use of a previously developed scale. From the international literature review, 392 documents were identified and 53 were selected, of which 51 were original articles and two were meta-analyses. Of the 51 original articles, one was a concept analysis, one was a theoretical study, three reported scale development, and forty-six confirmed the application of a previously developed scale. From the domestic and international literature, 120 items corresponding to five attributes were derived.
Second, focus group interviews were conducted among 20 fifth-to sixth-grade elementary school students, yielding 23 items; the 120 items derived from the literature and the 23 items derived through focus group interviews were combined to obtain a total of 143 tentative items. The preliminary scale was composed of a total of 92 items, excluding duplicates among the derived items.
The Likert scale is commonly used in nursing research [
In the first round of content validity testing, the CVI was .50 points for two items, .67 points for 27 items, .83 points for 16 items, and 1.0 points for 47 items. This resulted in 63 items with a CVI of .80 or higher.
The second round of content validity testing was conducted by two experts. A psychiatric nurse was interviewed to determine whether the sub-attributes were appropriate for representing the attributes of the concept to be measured, and the opinions of the nurse were collected. A high school Korean language teacher evaluated whether each item was appropriate for measuring the concept and whether it was expressed in a way that the participants would understand clearly. After the first and second rounds of content validity, 63 items remained.
In the pilot test, data from 22 participants were analyzed. They answered that the items were appropriate in terms of their comprehensibility, length, font and font size, the method of displaying the response, and the placement of the item. As a minority opinion, one elementary school student responded that similar questions about development scales and existing scales were repetitive. No items were corrected or deleted as a result of the pilot test.
The general characteristics of participants in this study were as follows. Of the participants, 186 (42.5%) were in the fifth grade, 252 (57.5%) were in the sixth grade, 203 (46.3%) were girls, and 235 (53.7%) were boys. Regarding religious affiliation, 193 participants (44.1%) reported “yes” and 245 (55.9%) replied “no”. The fathers of 118 participants (26.9%) had completed a graduate education and those of 223 participants (50.9%) had completed an undergraduate education. The mothers of 104 participants (23.7%) had completed a graduate education and those of 240 participants (54.8%) had completed an undergraduate education. The majority of participants (n= 323, 73.7%) responded that their family’s socioeconomic status was “middle,” while 102 (23.3%) responded with “high”. For self-perceived health status, 342 (78.1%) participants stated that they were “healthy” and 89 (20.3%) indicated that their health was “moderate”. Using Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, USA), 200 samples for EFA and 238 samples for CFA were randomly selected [
The average score of each of the 63 initial items was 2.98-4.65 points, and the standard deviation was 0.63-1.22. The absolute value of skewness of item 29 was 2.22 and the absolute value of kurtosis was 4.28. In addition, for item 29, the ceiling effect was 44.6%. This item was excluded because it exceeded the skewness absolute value standard of 2 and the ceiling effect standard of less than 30%. For the remaining 62 items, the absolute value of skewness of the items was 0.00-1.52 points, the absolute value of kurtosis was 0.01-2.48 points, the floor effect was 0.0%-6.4%, and the ceiling effect was 2.6%-29.0%[
First, EFA of 62 items was conducted, excluding one item as mentioned above. The KMO value was .50 or less, and the p-value of Bartlett’s sphericity test was less than .050 [
In the secondary factor analysis, the number of sub-factors was 11, totaling 37 items. Seven items with a difference of less than .20 in the cross-loading were excluded. The number of sub-factors for the third factor analysis was 10, with a total of 30 items. Four items with a difference of less than .20 in the cross-loading were excluded. In the fourth analysis, the number of sub-factors was 8 and there were 26 items. One item with a factor load less than .40 was deleted, and one item with a cross-loading of less than .20 was excluded.
In the fifth round of factor analysis, eight sub-factors and 24 items were derived. The item exclusion criteria excluded items 9 and 10, which were judged to be difficult-to-explain sub-attributes based on content review. The excluded items were item 9 (“Other people say I am a considerate person”) and item 10 (“When I have to do what I want to do, I think about good things after doing it”). In the sixth round of factor analysis, seven sub-factors and 22 items were derived. Two items with cross-loading of less than .20 were excluded. The number of sub-factors in the seventh round of factor analysis was seven, with 20 items. Six items with a factor load of less than .70 were excluded, and one item with a factor load of less than .40 was excluded.
Therefore, 13 items with six attributes were derived. In the final (eighth) round of factor analysis, the KMO value was .72 and the value yielded by Bartlett’s sphericity test was 736.23 (
The absolute fitness index, CMIN (
The AVE values of the six sub-factors of the scale developed in this study were .50 for control of relationship with one’s teacher, .62 for problem-solving, .56 for peer empathy, .74 for control of relationships with one’s peers, .56 for impulse control, and .49 for emotional control. The CR was .75 for control of relationship with one’s teacher, .77 for problem-solving, .72 for peer empathy, .85 for control of relationships with one’s peers, .72 for impulse control, and .65 for emotional control. The first result of discriminant validity was that the AVE was larger than the squared value of the correlation coefficient (
The reliability of the self-control measurement scale developed by Nam and Ok [
As a measure of overall reliability, Cronbach’s α of all 13 items for measuring the self-control competency of late-school -aged children developed in this study was .83 (n=438) [
As a step to optimize the self-control competency scale of late-school-aged children, the grammar and readability of the final selected items were modified based on advice from one nursing professor, one high school Korean language teacher, and one elementary school teacher with experience in scale development.
Two items were revised in the area of control of relationship with one’s teacher. The item was revised from “I run in the corridor if the teacher does not see” to “I run in the hallway unless the teacher sees it”. Additionally, “I play pranks if my teacher doesn’t see it in class” was revised to “I do something else in class without the teacher’s knowledge”. One item was revised in the area of control of relationships with one’s peers. Specifically, in the item “I cooperate well at joint work when I collaborate with friends”, “joint work” was modified to “group activity”. One item was revised in the peer empathy area; namely, “I don’t express myself when I do well on an exam” was modified to “I show off to my friends when my test scores are good”. In addition, one item was revised in the area of emotional control. Specifically, “I can’t control my emotions when I feel good or bad” was changed to “I express myself immediately when I feel good or bad”. In total, five items were revised.
This scale targets fifth- to sixth-grade elementary school students, and participants respond on a 5-point Likert scale. Higher scores indicate better self-control competency.
Through the literature review and focus group interviews for scale development, the following five attributes of self-control were found: interpersonal relations, impulse control, task solving, deliberation, and emotional control, and the preliminary scale was configured accordingly. In this study, the following six attributes were used to evaluate self-control: control of relationship with one’s teacher, problem-solving, peer empathy, control of relationships with one’s peers, impulse control, and emotional control. There were 92 preliminary items. Content validity assessment was conducted with 63 initial items, through content validity verification. The final scale was 13 questions.
The importance of interpersonal relations in this scale is consistent with previous studies showing that social aspects and education in schools are major factors related to self-control [
Problem-solving is completed in order to perform a given task. Based on the field survey, items such as “I read long books to the end” and “I carry out the plans I make for doing well on exams” were included. The items included in the final scale did not show noteworthy differences from items in previous studies dealing with completing tasks or achieving goals [
Impulse control involves resisting temptation or impulses as part of self-control. Scales measuring the attribute of immediate satisfaction-seeking contain items related to impulse control such as “I want to do or have something I want to do immediately” and “I can’t stand waiting for what I want to say” [
Emotional control can be divided into peer empathy and control of one’s emotions. In previous studies, anger control was a sub-factor of self-control that corresponded to negative emotions [
Deliberation was initially found to be a sub-attribute of self-control, as opposed to personality traits and impulsiveness in previous studies [
As discussed earlier, interpersonal relationships as a subfactor of self-control were divided into control of relationship with one’s teacher and control of relationships with one’s peers. The emotional control attribute was divided into peer empathy and emotional control. Deliberation was not ultimately included as an attribute of self-control.
Content validity was confirmed through expert validation. Since content validity is based on the subjective judgment of the content expert, care is needed when selecting an expert [
The concurrent validity criterion was satisfied, and the conditions of internal consistency reliability and test-retest reliability were satisfied. As a result of testing the scale, the reliability and validity of the self-control competency measurement scale were verified.
This scale was developed with an appropriate number of items and measurement time to measure self-control in late-school-aged children. The time required to complete the scale was less than 5 minutes. In addition, the scale was developed to include easily comprehensible phrases that participants can respond to according to the level of understanding of late-school-aged children. In the development stage, opinions of the target group were collected through focus group interviews of late-school-aged children.
Among the items that were finally reflected, “I tend to follow time limits for using my smartphone” was chosen to directly reflect the group interview, and the item in the group interview, “Although I want to play longer than the set time, I can stop playing the game (on the computer)” was corrected through the content validity process. In addition, the items were refined to reflect the terms used in the field so that late-school-aged children could respond easily. This study is meaningful in that it developed a scale to evaluate self-control in late-school-aged children by collecting and analyzing data through field surveys and a literature review.
This study was conducted to develop a self-reported measurement scale for self-control in late-school-aged children and to verify its reliability and validity. The scale developed through this study consisted of 13 items with six attributes. There were three items for control of relationship with one’s teacher, two items for problem-solving, two items for peer empathy, two items for control of relationships with one’s peers, two items for impulse control, and two items for emotional control.
This scale included various attributes to measure self-control, a complex concept, in late-school-aged children (in fifth to sixth grade in elementary school). The final scale is composed of short sentences that elicit clear answers. In addition, it reflects terms used by current late-school-aged children. In particular, the items in the impulse control area are composed of items about smartphones (games) that have not been included in the existing scales, reflecting the current elementary school scene. The scale developed in this study is expected to provide practical help to more clearly and accurately evaluate self-control in late-school-aged children. Since this scale is for students in the fifth to sixth grades of elementary school, it is necessary to consider vocabulary and comprehension by grade when applied to other ages.
No existing or potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.
Please contact the corresponding author for data availability.
Scale development process. I-CVI, item-content validity index; ICC, intraclass correlation coefficient.
General Characteristics of the Focus Group Participants (
Variable | Categories | n (%) | EFA group (n=200) | CFA group (n=238) | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| |||||
n (%) | n (%) | |||||
Grade | 5th | 186 (42.5) | 82 (41.0) | 104 (43.7) | 0.32 | .628 |
6th | 252 (57.5) | 118 (59.0) | 134 (56.3) | |||
| ||||||
Gender | Female | 203 (46.3) | 96 (48.0) | 107 (45.0) | 0.40 | .564 |
Male | 235 (53.7) | 104 (52.0) | 131 (55.0) | |||
| ||||||
Religion | Yes | 193 (44.1) | 86 (43.0) | 107 (45.0) | 0.17 | .700 |
No | 245 (55.9) | 114 (57.0) | 131 (55.0) | |||
| ||||||
Father’s education | Graduate | 118 (26.9) | 49 (24.5) | 69 (29.0) | 1.95 | .584 |
Undergraduate | 223 (50.9) | 108 (54.0) | 115 (48.3) | |||
High school | 44 (10.1) | 21 (10.5) | 23 (9.7) | |||
Unknown | 53 (12.1) | 22 (11.0) | 31 (13.0) | |||
| ||||||
Mother’s education | Graduate | 104 (23.7) | 47 (23.5) | 57 (23.9) | 0.34 | .953 |
Undergraduate | 240 (54.8) | 111 (55.5) | 129 (54.2) | |||
High school | 41 (9.4) | 17 (8.5) | 24 (10.1) | |||
Unknown | 53 (12.1) | 25 12.5) | 28 (11.8) | |||
| ||||||
Economic status | High | 102 (23.3) | 48 (24.0) | 54 (22.7) | 1.25 | .536 |
Middle | 323 (73.7) | 148 (74.0) | 175 (73.5) | |||
Low | 13 (3.0) | 4 (2.0) | 9 (3.8) | |||
| ||||||
Perceived health | Healthy | 342 (78.1) | 154 (77.0) | 188 (79.0) | 0.33 | .848 |
Moderate | 89 (20.3) | 43 (21.5) | 46 (19.3) | |||
Poor | 7 (1.6) | 3 (1.5) | 4 (1.7) |
CFA, confirmatory factor analysis; EFA, exploratory factor analysis.
Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis (
No | Item contents | Factor | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | ||
1 | I run in the hallway unless the teacher sees it. |
.078 | .121 | −.039 | .132 | .057 | |
2 | I do something else in class without the teacher’s knowledge. |
.020 | .093 | .174 | .072 | .160 | |
3 | I tend to follow the rules well even when the teacher is not watching. | .305 | −.054 | .347 | .050 | .043 | |
| |||||||
4 | I can put up with difficult problems. | .109 | .057 | .139 | .070 | .071 | |
5 | I can finish things that are boring or not fun. | .128 | .134 | .090 | .068 | .157 | |
| |||||||
6 | I don’t express my happiness to my friends when I’m complimented one-on-one. | −.054 | .037 | .206 | .162 | −.001 | |
7 | I show off to my friends when my test scores are good. |
.233 | .156 | .039 | .021 | .119 | |
| |||||||
8 | I cooperate well at group activities when I collaborate with my friends. | .096 | .109 | .033 | .095 | .102 | |
9 | When I talk with my friends, I listen to what other friends are saying. | .193 | .126 | .248 | .058 | .070 | |
| |||||||
10 | Although I want to play longer than the set time, I can stop playing the game (on the computer). | .062 | .065 | .061 | .064 | .077 | |
11 | I tend to follow time limits for using my smartphone. | .145 | .067 | .106 | .082 | .139 | |
| |||||||
12 | I am easily excited about small things. |
.047 | .163 | −.001 | .087 | .034 | |
13 | I express myself immediately when I feel good or bad. |
.171 | .055 | .117 | .078 | .203 | |
Eigenvalue | 3.901 | 1.421 | 1.345 | 1.252 | 1.047 | 1.022 | |
Explained variance (%) | 15.713 | 12.782 | 12.388 | 12.386 | 12.041 | 11.514 | |
Accumulative variance (%) | 15.713 | 28.495 | 40.883 | 53.269 | 65.309 | 76.824 | |
Cronbach’s α (total=.80) | .76 | .75 | .73 | .68 | .70 | .65 | |
KMO=.72; Bartlett’s test of sphericity=736.23 ( |
Reverse item;
Control of relationship with one's teacher;
Problem-solving;
Peer empathy;
Control of relationships with one's peers;
Impulse control;
Emotional control;
KMO, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin.
Result of Convergent Validity and First Test of Discriminant Validity, Model Fit of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (
Factors | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | AVE | CR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||
1. Control of relationship with one’s teacher | 1 | .50 | .75 | |||||
| ||||||||
2. Problem-solving | .559 (.312) |
1 | .62 | .77 | ||||
| ||||||||
3. Peer empathy | .427 (.182) |
.437 (.191) |
1 | .56 | .72 | |||
| ||||||||
4. Control of relationship with one’s peers | .547 (.299) |
.477 (.228) |
.580 (.336) |
1 | .74 | .85 | ||
| ||||||||
5. Impulse control | .672 (.452) |
.575 (.331) |
.495 .245) |
.449 (.202) |
1 | .56 | .72 | |
| ||||||||
6. Emotional control | .519 (.269) |
.447 (.200) |
.219 (.048) |
.208 (.043) |
.439 (.193) |
1 | .49 | .65 |
Fitness index | CMIN | CMIN/df | SRMR | RMSEA | GFI | AGFI | IFI | TLI | CFI | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||
CMIN | df | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Criteria | >.050 | <3.000 | ≤.080 | .050-.080 | ≥.90 | ≥.90 | ≥.90 | ≥.90 | ≥.90 | ||
| |||||||||||
Model | 99.845 | 50 | <.001 | 1.997 | .050 | .065 | .94 | .90 | .95 | .93 | .95 |
AGFI, adjusted goodness-of-fit index; AVE, average variance extracted; CFI, comparative fit index; CMIN,
Results of the Second Test of Discriminant Validity (
Factors | SE | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
2×SE | − | + | |||||
CT | ↔ | Problem-solving | .559 | .07 | .13 | .43 | .20 |
CT | ↔ | Peer empathy | .427 | .06 | .13 | .30 | .19 |
CT | ↔ | CP | .547 | .05 | .10 | .44 | .16 |
CT | ↔ | Impulse control | .672 | .08 | .15 | .52 | .23 |
CT | ↔ | Emotional control | .519 | .07 | .13 | .39 | .20 |
| |||||||
Problem-solving | ↔ | Peer empathy | .437 | .06 | .12 | .32 | .18 |
Problem-solving | ↔ | CP | .477 | .05 | .09 | .39 | .14 |
Problem-solving | ↔ | Impulse control | .575 | .07 | .13 | .44 | .20 |
Problem-solving | ↔ | Emotional control | .447 | .06 | .11 | .33 | .17 |
| |||||||
Peer empathy | ↔ | CP | .580 | .05 | .10 | .48 | .16 |
Peer empathy | ↔ | Impulse control | .495 | .07 | .13 | .36 | .20 |
Peer empathy | ↔ | Emotional control | .219 | .05 | .09 | .13 | .14 |
| |||||||
CP | ↔ | Impulse control | .449 | .05 | .10 | .35 | .15 |
CP | ↔ | Emotional control | .208 | .03 | .07 | .14 | .10 |
| |||||||
Impulse control | ↔ | Emotional control | .439 | .06 | .12 | .32 | .18 |
CP, control of relationships with one's peers; CT, control of relationship with one's teacher.