SEI YV Psychometrics

Concurrent Validity

In the SEI-YV survey, the assessment measures Life Barometers under a separate section, which asks the youth about current performance in specific arenas that impact their lives daily. The overall Life Barometer score breaks down into five different Barometers. Youth tend to rate themselves slightly lower on the Life Barometer items than on the EQ component items.

Importantly, the Life Barometers afford us a built-in opportunity to measure concurrent validity via multiple regression analysis. The validity is said to be concurrent rather than predictive due to the fact that youth complete the second section of the survey immediately after the first section. The insights gained from this analysis are also reported in a powerful EQ Yardstick that is extremely useful for purposes of further development. Many practitioners view the EQ Yardstick as the most powerful part of the SEI-YV report.

The variance in scores within each of the Life Barometers is explained as follows by the EQ components:

Overall, the regression results, and hence the concurrent validity of the SEI-YV, look favorable. The results for the two outer Life Barometers are only moderate due to a slight bimodality in the responses: youth tend to have either good health habits or not so much, and are either moderately self-efficacious or slightly more. This latter aspect is addressed via refinements in the item wording of the current edition of the SEI-YV. While we include good health as a Life Barometer in the SEI-YV in recognition of this being a growing issue among youth in many parts of the world, we are still working to fully understand the relationship between physical health (eating and exercise) and emotional intelligence. The most important EQ scales contributing to each Life Barometer are determined by a statistical technique called stepwise regression analysis (forward procedure). The top three with the highest contributing value to each of the five Life Barometers are shown below. Note that some EQ components repeat across the Life Barometers, though their order of importance may differ. It is also helpful to keep in mind that the EQ components contribute value as they work together to explain the variance in Life Barometer scores from the norm base. Therefore, all indicated EQ components should be considered together when compared against the corresponding Life Barometer.

Ultimately, all eight EQ components are important for further development of the Life Barometers. The top EQ components that statistically contributed most to the regression model for each Life Barometer were selected, hence the order in which they are listed is meaningful. Note that the same EQ component can contribute to different Life Barometers, but in a different order of importance, and in combination with different EQ components each time. From the perspective of further developing the Life Barometers then, Assessors should pay particular attention to these combinations of EQ components.

Since the beta values in the respective regression equations of all the identified EQ components are positive, one should interpret the relationship that high scores in these EQ components are generally associated with high scores in the Life Barometers. The statistical selections above help users target their development with an enhanced chance of success. Ideally, the Life Barometer and three EQ component scores grouped together should be in balance with one another.

Associations Between Scales

Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient was used to determine the association between scales:

Three EQ pursuits (K-C-G)

0.44 – 0.55

Eight EQ components

On average 0.34
Ranging between 0.25 and 0.49

Five Life Barometers

On average 0.44
Ranging between 0.29 and 0.64

The three pursuits, eight attributes and five life barometers performed consistently across different demographics.

The correlation between the EQ component items and the Life Barometer items is 0.66 on average. The following graph displays the relationship between the two, and supports the further development of EQ and SEL through the EQ Yardstick that is offered in individual and group SEI-YV reports:

The linear direct relationship between the EQ components and Life Barometers is evident from the graph, despite individual exceptions. 

Internal Consistency

The list shows Cronbach’s coefficient alpha statistic for each EQ component below. Because it is somewhat dependent on the number of items per EQ scale, with higher reported alpha values when the number of items increases substantially and introduces some redundancy, this is shown as well.

In spite of fair variance in item wording within each EQ scale, all internal consistency measures are satisfactory. None of the average scale scores are overly positive, with fair approximation of normal distribution characteristics as the table in the section about standardization indicates in further detail.

In Summary

Overall, the statistical validation of the SEI-YV is standing the test of time, growing in strength, and supportive of practices related to emotional intelligence (EQ), as well as social and emotional learning (SEL). We are committed to keep growing the heterogeneous composition of the norm base and keep the validation and standardization research behind the SEI-YV up to date.

Although the SEI-YV shares the same theoretical structure as that of the adult SEI version, as a separate survey with its own unique items, it stands and performs independently. One cannot transfer the validity of the youth version to that of the adult version, and vice versa. Since it is erroneous to infer reports of validation from one version to the next (as is sometimes done with other assessments belonging to the same product suite), it is important to know that we have the validation of each separate assessment in place as reflected by separate research studies, norm populations, and manuals.