Francisco Xavier Méndez

The Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters

Summary: This study analyzes the psychometric properties of the Spanish translation of the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters (MESSY; Matson, Rotatori & Helsel, 1983), which assesse...

The List of Social Situation Problems: Reliability and validity in an adolescent Spanish-speaking sample.

The aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish translation of the List of Social Situation Problems (LSSP; S. H. Spence, 1980). The questionnaire was administered to a sample of 388 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18. Exploratory factor analysis identified four factors: Social Anxiety, Adult Oppositional, Assertiveness, and Making Friends, which accounted for 26.64% of the variance. Internal consistency of the total scale was high (α = .86). Correlations between the LSSP and two self-report measures of social anxiety, the Questionnaire about Interpersonal Difficulties for Adolescents (r = .45) and the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (r = .48), were statistically significant. A significant difference was found between LSSP total scores for adolescents with and without social anxiety (d = 1.14), supporting the construct validity of the scale.