Abstract

Background: The current study aimed to develop a tool to assess the performance skills of Iranian children aged 5 to 7 years in order to evaluate their school competency based on the occupational therapy practice framework and to determine its validity. Materials and Methods: Performance skills are the cornerstone of the tool. The eight-step design process of Devellis was used to develop the tool. To analyze the content validity, the content validity index, and the content validity ratio were used. Following administration of the tool in 100 children (5 to 7 years) in the pilot study, the items were analyzed. After applying the tool to 400 children aged 5 to 7 years, the construct validity of the tool was determined with confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis and differential, convergent, and divergent validity. Results: The primary item pool included 212 items which was reduced to 112 items after administrating content validity and item analysis. Based on exploratory factor analyses, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) index was (0.890), and five factors indicating 55.02 of the total variance were obtained. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the results. The discriminant validity between the age groups was statistically significant (P < 0.001); r ranged from 0.447 to 0.867 for convergent validity and 0.073 to 0.597 for divergent validity. Conclusion: The results indicated the excellent validity of the SICPSBS to assess the performance skills of 5 to 7 year-old Iranian children in terms of school competency. The test evaluates all sensory-perceptual, motor-praxis, visual-perception, cognitive, social interaction, and process domains for each child.