Developing a Teacher Administered Anxiety Rating Scale Suitable for Five to Seven-Year-Old Children

This paper presents results of twin studies pertinent to the development of a rating scale designed for use by teachers to identify anxious and shy children, aged 5 to 7 years, in Kindergarten and Grade One. Currently, no instruments designed specifically for this purpose exist. Children experiencing difficulty with internalizing disorders such as anxiety, shyness, and behavioural inhibition represent a growing segment of the population (Merrell,2001). Evidence indicates the educational, psychological, and emotional needs of these children are not being addressed (Barlow,2002). Kindergarten and Grade One teachers were interviewed to find out if they recognized behaviours drawn from the literature on childhood anxiety disorders as shyness and anxiety. Information obtained was used to formulate, construct, and evaluate a rating scale to be administered by teachers. The paper includes an overview, literature review of the research on anxiety in young children, description of methods used to obtain salient information and a discussion regarding construction of the rating scale. Data for the two studies was obtained by both quantitative and qualitative methods. The first study employed semi-structured interviews with teachers and their completion of a prototype rating scale. The second study consisted of the administration of the scale and comparisons of its psychometric properties to other instruments. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and limitations of the studies.