THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FIRST GRADE ADJUSTMENT SCALE
THE PURPOSE of the present paper is to dei scribe the development of a rating scale designed to assess the young child's adjustment in first | grade. Although several elementary school be havior rating scales are available (1,2), none applies specifically to the child's adjustment to the demands of the educational regime in the first grade. The development of the present scale was dic tated by the requirements of a larger study deal ing with readiness for first grade and first-grade adjustment. The investigation was a short-term longitudinal one in which a group of five-year-olds were studied throughout the year prior to their entrance into first grade. The group was followed into the first grade where data related to achieve ment and adjustment were collected. Since one of the purposes of the study was to establish re lationships between the skills, abilities, and atti tudes which the child brings to the first-grade situation and the classroom teacher's evaluation of his overall adjustment and achievement in the first grade, some criterion measure of adjustment upon which the subjects could be rated was neces sary. In addition, such a scale would seem de sirable in view of the importance and concern which both parents and educators attach to the child's ability to adjust to the initial experience of formal schooling. While little information is available in the research literature c o n c e rning the relation between early school adjustment and adjustment in later school years, there are indications of at least a moderate degree of con sistency in individuals' adjustment over varying time periods.