Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA)

DESSA assesses eight social and emotional competencies and is intended to help educators plan instruction, document students’ strengths and areas of need, inform progress monitoring, and evaluate program outcomes.

Cognitive competencies; Interpersonal competencies; Intrapersonal competencies

K-8

2014

2008

Parents/guardians, teachers, or staff at schools and child-serving agencies, including after-school, social service, and mental health programs.

Paper/Pencil, Digital

72

Five-point Likert-type scale

Five to 10 minutes

English, Spanish

None

An overall Social-Emotional Composite score is reported.

There are eight subscores:

• Self-awareness
• Social awareness
• Self-management
• Goal-directed behavior
• Relationship skills
• Personal responsibility
• Decisionmaking
• Optimistic thinking

Scoring manual and online scoring service is provided by the assessment developers.

DESSA results are reported using T-scores and percentile ranks. Tools are also available for pre-test/post-test comparisons and rater comparisons. Online administration produces individual student, classroom, site, and program-level reports.

A nationally representative sample of 2,500 children from across the United States (LeBuffe et al., 2009). Ratings were provided by teachers, out-of-school time staff and parents/guardians, 227 raters from across the United States (Nickerson & Fishman, 2009).

Internal consistency coefficients were estimated for the Social-Emotional composite as well as the eight subscales; they were estimated separately for parent and teacher raters. Coefficient alpha ranged from 0.82 to 0.99. Test-retest reliabilities ranged from 0.79 to 0.90 (parents), and 0.86 to 0.94 (teachers/staff). Intra-rater reliabilities had correlation coefficients of 0.73 for parents, and 0.74 for teachers/staff (LeBuffe et al., 2009).

Evidence based on content

Content-related validity evidence was gathered through literature reviews (LeBuffe et al., 2009).

Evidence based on response processes

No information available in the references reviewed.

Evidence based on internal structure

Items were organized into logically derived and statistically validated scales based on the CASEL framework of social and emotional competencies (LeBuffe et al., 2009).

Evidence based on relations with other variables

An analysis showed divergence in DESSA scores between students identified as having social, emotional or behavioral disorders and their peers (LeBuffe, P.A., Shapiro, V.B., & Naglieri, J.A. (2009). DESSA scores showed significant correlations in the anticipated directions with other measures of similar constructs, including the BASC-2 (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004) and the BERS-2 (Epstein, 2004).

This measure is also reviewed in the AWG Guide.