An assessment of primary school pupils’ needs with regard to planning the social- pedagogic interventions – standardisation of the measurement instrument

This paper presents the development process of the measuring instrument for timely identification of elementary school pupils’ behavioural problems, with the aim of proper implementation of appropriate socio-pedagogical interventions.1 The key matter discussed in the paper is the Questionnaire for assessment of interventional needs of pupils – version for pupils, which is being developed and evaluated with the aim of contributing to the standardisation and evaluation processes of the socio-pedagogical interventions in elementary schools.2 The research was conducted on a sample of 3301 pupils from the third, fifth, and seventh grades, from 43 elementary schools in 13 Croatian counties. The final version of the Questionnaire consists of 42 variables which measure relationships with peers, relationship towards education, relationship towards obligations, relationships with parents, the level of parental support, openness in communication and interests, relationships with teachers, self-satisfaction and permissiveness in upbringing. The reliability, validity and objectivity of the Questionnaire are satisfactory (Cronbach’s Alpha = .894). The pupils were clustered in three groups, based on the result on the Questionnaire: pupils with behavioural disorders, with behavioural difficulties and other pupils who do not display behavioral difficulties or disorders. It was found that, according to this criteria, there is an average of 12.88% pupils with behavioural problems in Croatian elementary schools. This paper suggests guidelines for grouping pupils into categories that depend on the gender and age of the pupils, but the precise norms concerning the criteria will be developed in the next stage of the project.