Principal Dimensions of Child Personality as Inferred from Teachers' Judgments

Abstract

Measurement in all scientific enterprises has traditionally had its origin in the sense data of everyday experience. With this tradition in mind, Cattell (4) has suggested an exploration of the domain of personality, beginning with the sense data reflected in judgments of behavior characteristics. In practice, this has meant use of one of the traditional scaling procedures (e.g., rating scales) and an analysis of the dimensionality of the judgment process by multivariate techniques, typically factor analysis. Cattell's work has always implied that the structure of adult personality is considerably complex. Recent reports (e.g., 7) would suggest that the structure of child personality is both complex and perhaps quite similar to that of the adult, that is, that the same fundamental dimensions are involved. Independent corroboration of Cattell's conclusions with respect to child personality structure is difficult to find, however. Earlier work, such as the analysis of the Fels Scales by Richards and Simons (20), suffered from a variety of shortcomings characteristic of the precomputer era (e.g., inadequate rotation). Koch's analysis (15) of physiological and psychological characteristics of children, while provocative, was perhaps too ambitious in design, considering the heterogeneous sample used (age 21 to 58 months), the size of the sample (N = 46), and the number of observers (one).