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Validation of the W ider O utcomes S urvey for T eachers ( WOST ): a measure for assessing the behaviour, relationships and exposure to bullying of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities ( SEND )
Author(s) -
Wigelsworth Michael,
Oldfield Jeremy,
Humphrey Neil
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of research in special educational needs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.543
H-Index - 27
ISSN - 1471-3802
DOI - 10.1111/1471-3802.12030
Subject(s) - psychology , confirmatory factor analysis , construct validity , internal consistency , special education , special educational needs , construct (python library) , measurement invariance , applied psychology , developmental psychology , psychometrics , clinical psychology , medical education , social psychology , mathematics education , structural equation modeling , statistics , medicine , mathematics , computer science , programming language
The W ider O utcomes S urvey for T eachers ( WOST ) is a teacher informant‐report questionnaire developed to aid the assessment of behaviour difficulties, quality of relationships and exposure to bullying among students identified with special educational needs and disabilities ( SEND ). This study examines the psychometric properties of the WOST in a validation sample representing 6164 students with SEND (mean age 12 years) drawn from 481 primary and secondary schools across E ngland. Results showed favourable internal consistency using C ronbach's alpha and acceptable model fit using confirmatory factor analysis, both of which were invariant to broad categorisations of SEND . Practical utility and construct validity were also established by testing two theoretically derived hypotheses. The measure is therefore tentatively supported as a useful tool for assessing the wider outcomes of students with SEND .