Development of a Short Form of the Children’s Emotion Vocabulary Scale, Using Item Response Theory Analysis

Abstract

Acquisition of emotion words plays an important role in children’s socialization and in the development of their emotional experience. The present study aimed to develop a short-form emotion vocabulary scale to measure the emotion vocabulary of preschoolers and young elementary school children as reported by their mothers, by applying the model of item response theory (IRT). In Study 1, data were collected from 1,136 mothers of 3- to 9-year-old children. Based on the data from that study, a short form of the Emotion Vocabulary Scale was constructed. In Studies 2 and 3, mothers of preschool and young elementary school children completed the Emotion Vocabulary Scale and other measures. The pattern of correlations between the Emotion Vocabulary Scale and several relevant variables suggests that the Emotion Vocabulary Scale is associated with language ability and social-emotional competence in children, thus confirming the validity of the scale.