Abstract

Currently, the study of teachers' social-emotional skills has gained prominence in the education system due to robust evidence linking these competencies to indicators of students' social, behavioral, and academic success. Therefore, it is important to have valid and reliable assessment tools that enable a rigorous operationalization and evaluation of these teaching competencies, establishing comparable and replicable benchmarks that strengthen empirical research in this field. The literature presents various theoretical perspectives on social-emotional skills, and the theoretical models cover a fairly broad range. For the present study, a general classification of these skills was developed, identifying two main categories: emotional self-regulation, which involves awareness of one's own emotions and the ability to regulate them; and social skills, which relate to awareness of others' emotions and the ability to manage relationships. Given the importance of these skills among teachers, the objective of this study was to adapt and validate a social and emotional skills scale for use in assessing teachers. Thus, the study sought to validate an instrument with psychometric properties that ensure an appropriate measurement of these skills. Specifically, the objectives were: (a) to establish the content validity of the scale, (b) to establish the response-scale validity, and (c) to establish the internal structure validity of the scale. For the study, an instrumental design was developed that involved adapting three different scales: the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ;Gross & John, 2003), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980) and the Teacher-Student Relationship Scale (Pianta, 2001). The instrument was applied to a sample of 318 Chilean teachers; the sampling was non-probabilistic and based on convenience. The inclusion criteria for the sample were secondary school teachers with a contract for at least 20 teaching hours. The participants reported a mean age of 34.76 (SD=10.30) years. Regarding gender: 231 (72.6%) teachers identified as women, 83 (26.1%) identified as men, and 4 (1.3%) chose not to specify. In terms of teaching experience, participants had an average of 21.95 (SD=16.91) years. The instrument validation process consisted of three phases: content validity assessed by expert raters; response scale validity assessed through cognitive interviews; and internal structure validity assessed through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. As a result, content validity was corroborated through expert raters' analysis and cognitive interviews with a group of teachers. The process of adapting and validating the EHSED-30 scale confirmed that it has two subdimensions, which align with the preliminary theoretical proposals: emotional self-regulation and social skills. In the case of emotional self-regulation, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit for the two-factor model consisting of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. And for social skills, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed a good fit for the three-factor model: empathic concern, closeness, and conflict. It was found that the scale possesses indicators of content validity and a structure consistent with the theory. This research contributes to scientific knowledge by making the EHSED-30 scale available as a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the social-emotional skills of emotional self-regulation and social skills in teachers.