Journal of Consulting and Clinital Psychology

1976, Vol. 44, No. 5, 77S-786

A Health Resources Inventory: The Development of a Measure

of the Personal and Social Competence of
Primary-Grade Children
Ellis L, Gesten
University of Rochester
A series of interrelated studies describe the scale development and empirical
validation of the Health Resources Inventory (HRI), a teacher measure of
primary-grade children's competency-related behavior. Oblique factor analysis
of the HRI for matched samples (N = 298 and N — 294) yielded comparable
solutions, each with five internally consistent competence dimensions. Tcst-
retcst reliability was .87 for the full scale and ranged from .72 to .91 on in-
dividual factor scales. Parametric findings revealed that (a) girls had con-
sistently higher competence scores than boys, (b) county children had signifi-
cantly higher scores than city children, and (c) there were no consistent
grade level differences. Correlations between the HRI and a symptom scale
indicate that although competence and pathology arc strongly (inversely) re-
lated for overall, global judgments, competence and pathology arc more in-
dependent at the level of individual factors. The HRI discriminated between
normal and disturbed children, and in a more stringent validity test, sensitively
differentiated competence levels within a normative sample. Limitations of the
inventory are discussed along with implications for future work.

Psychology in the past decade has been
shifting its focus away from pathology, toward
effective functioning. Those who urge such a
change cite the inadequacies of intervention
strategies based on the illness, or medical,
model of disorder (Cowen, 1973; Cowen,
This research is based on a dissertation submitted
in partial fulfillment for the PhD degree at the Uni-
versity of Rochester. Appreciation is gratefully ac-
knowledged to Emory L. Cowen, who as research
advisor was an unfailing source of useful criticism,
guidance, and support throughout this project. Other
committee members, all of whom gave generously of
their time were Michael L. Davidson, Howard P.
Iker, and Gerald A. Gladstein.
I am also grateful to Robert A. Caldwell, Ray-
mond P. Lorion, and Alice B. Wilson for their
contributions to data collection and analyses. A spe-
cial note of thanks goes to the many school teachers
and administrators whose patience and cooperation
made this project happen.
Parts of this article were presented at the 46th
annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Associ-
ation, New York, April 3, 1975.
This research was supported by Grant MH 11820-
04 from the National Institute of Mental Health,
Experimental and Special Training Branch.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Ellis Ges-
ten, Department of Psychology, University of Ro-
chester, Rochester, New York 14627.
775
Gardner, & Zax, 1967; White, 1973; Zax &
Cowen, 1972; Zax & Specter, 1974). The rea-
sons for mental health's historical focus on
symptoms have been extensively documented
elsewhere (Albee, 1967; Bloom, 196S; Sara-
son & Ganzer, 1968). They are less relevant
to the present discussion than one important
consequence of that preoccupation. Simply
put, we know woefully little about "normal"
behavior, a subject that has been largely ig-
nored and often denned by default as the
absence of symptoms. Our understanding of
effective, optimal human functioning is even
more primitive.
Many arguments have been developed sup-
porting the need for a psychology of health or
competence to replace, or at least temper,
past emphases on pathology. Jahoda's seminal
volume (Jahoda, 1958) prepared for the
Joint Commission advanced one of the first
models for viewing positive mental health.
From the perspective of treatment, White
(1973) reasons persuasively that competencies
in clients must be identified and reinforced
to maximize outcomes. Kelly (Note 1), from
an ecological-community psychology perspec-
tive, suggested that concepts of health must
take into account both the nature of the
776 ELLIS L. GESTKN
person and the social settings in which the
person is involved. For Kelly, competence
judgments rest on observation and analysis of
transactions and relationships between persons
and settings over time. Notwithstanding these
cogent arguments and community psychol-
ogy's growing plea for a psychology of health,
there has been little research to shift the con-
cepts of positive mental health and compe-
tence from rallying cry to scientific constructs.
Two key, related factors have made re-
search in this area difficult. First, mental
health professionals lack an adequate con-
ceptual system to permit them to communi-
cate systematically about positive, adaptive
behavior. Hollister (1967), for example, noted
that although the English language contains
the word "trauma" to describe psychologically
debilitating experiences, it lacks a word to
describe the opposite, that is, psychologically
health-building experiences. He coined the
word stren to denote such events. Although
labeling a concept does not assure its common
understanding, at least it encourages com-
munication and research about it. In this
manner, Finkel's recent studies (Finkel, 1974,
1975) have helped to articulate the construct
underlying the label stren and, by so doing,
have advanced our understanding of healthy
functioning.
Lack of instrumentation also limits research
on psychological health and competence. But
if mental health's focus is to move from re-
pairing dysfunction toward building for health,
new measures are needed. An important cau-
tion to keep in mind in developing such mea-
sures is that competence may in part be situ-
ation specific. Such a view is consistent with
converging evidence from several sources (Mc-
Clelland, 1973; Wallace, 1966) that the
search for global tests that can measure nearly
everything in nearly everyone is illusory. Spe-
cific tests are needed to measure specific
competence-related variables in specific set-
tings.
The school environment is an extremely
important one in which to assess competence
and its development. Both because schools
offer ready access to many children and be-
cause they arc so important in child sociali-
zation, they offer special opportunities for
assessing and promoting competence. But
doing this will require appropriate assessment
tools.
Accordingly, this study seeks to develop a
measure, for teacher use, of the school-related
personal and social competencies of primary-
grade children. Teachers are good judges of
children's competencies both because they
have significant contacts with them that form
a rich observational base and because they
have been shown to be reasonably sensitive
raters of wa/adaptation in children (Beilin,
1959; Clarfiekl, 1974).
METHOD
Health Resources Inventory (HRI) Scale
Development
Hem selection and teacher instructions. Lacking a
definitive framework for defining positive mental
health, scale items were drawn from several sources:
(a) prior health scales (Garmczy, 1973; Jones, 1972;
Kohn & Rosman, 1973; Rolf, 1972; Ross, Lacey, &
Parton, 196S; Rubcnstcin & Fisher, 1974; Sceman,
1963; White, 1972); (b) statements about healthy
functioning in the literature (Jahoda, 1958; Shoben,
1957; Smith, 1968; White, 1959); and (c) health
characteristics suggested by teachers, mental health
professionals, and parents in pilot work. An initial
pool of 79 items was first reduced by having several
teachers judge each item for (a) case of rateabilitj'
and (b) estimated variability across children. Items
that teachers considered difficult to rate or unlikely
to discriminate were dropped. Several clinical psy-
chologists screened the remaining items for redun-
dancy or ambiguous wording.
The final sample of 54 items ostensibly covered
several competence-related dimensions including self-
concept, affective expression, classroom response, mo-
tivation, interpersonal skills, achievement, and so-
cialization. Even though these labels were useful
descriptively in the early scale development stages,
ultimate scale structures were established empirically
through factor analysis.
Teachers rated all 54 HRT items according to
how well they described children on a S-point scale
from not at all (1) to very well (5). A second small
section of the rating form included three 7-point
scales (a) "How well do you know the child?," (b)
"How likable is he (she) ?," and (c) "How serious
are his (her) school adjustment problems?"
Procedure. Sixty-five volunteer teacher raters for
this research came from 12 schools, 5 in the Ro-
chester City School District and 7 in two adjacent
county districts. All schools had agreed to partici-
pate in a broad series of normative studies of chil-
dren's school adjustment problems and resources.
Teachers were randomly assigned one of two tasks
(a) to complete I I R l s for 15 randomly selected
children from their class roster or (b) to complete
HRIs and a symptom scale, the Classroom Activity
 A HEALTH RESOURCES INVENTORY
Rating Scale (CARS), for six children. This procedure
assured both an adequate HRI normative sample as
well as a subgroup for which both health and pa-
thology data were available and equalized time
demands across teachers. HRIs were filled out around
the midyear, by which time teachers had had 3—5
months of contact with children.
Subjects, There were 592 subjects in the norma-
tive sample with the following demographic break-
down: 311 boys, 281 girls; 300 city children, 292
county children; 237 first graders, 197 second grad-
ers, and 158 third graders. There arc significant
socioeconomic differences between city and county
samples, reflected by higher income and educational
levels and a greater percentage of white collar work-
ers in county families. Chi-squarc tests for the
variables of sex, grade, and residence were all non-
significant.
Factor analyses. To permit independent replica-
tion of an obtained factor solution, the initial total
sample (A) was divided into two subgroups (298 in
Sample B and 294 in Sample C) stratified by sex,
grade, and residence. This was done by halving each
teacher's contribution to the total subject pool across
these three demographic variables. Chi-square tests
indicated that there were no age, sex, or residence
differences between the subsamples.
For both subsamples, HRI ratings were analyzed
as follows: Item-item intercorrelations (A' = 1,431)
were computed, and the resulting matrices were fac-
tored by the principal-components procedure. A .90
factor eigenvalue cutoff was selected, yielding a five-
factor solution that was consistent with prior think-
ing about the nature of competence. In each analysis,
five factors accounting for 71% of the total variance
were rotated following both varimax and oblique
procedures (oblimin criterion, A = 0 and —.5; Har-
mon, 1967) yielding three solutions per sample. Com-
parisons could thus be made between orthogonal
and oblique solutions within, as well as across sam-
ples, for factor stability.
Although the orthogonal and oblique solutions were
comparable, the relatively more orthogonal (A —
—.5) oblique solution yielded the most inlerpretable
structure. All subsequent analyses are based on this
solution.
The final oblique factor solutions for Subsamples
B and C yielded essentially comparable results, sug-
gesting that the derived factor structure was stable.
Therefore, the total sample (A, JV = S92) was used
in subsequent analyses to maximize sample size.
Factor structure. Table 1 summarizes items that
contributed most (i.e., > a .10 cutoff in the factor
score coefficient matrix) to the HRI's factor struc-
ture.
Factor 1, Good Student, includes items related to
effective learning (e.g., "is good in arithmetic"; is
good in reading"; "does original work"; "is a self-
starter"). Factor 2, called Gutsy, includes items
reflecting adaptive assertiveness or ego strength (e.g.,
"is able to question rules that seem unfair or un-
clear to him"; "defends his views under group pres-
sure"; "expresses ideas willingly"). Peer Sociability,
777
the third factor, consists of items reflecting effective
interpersonal functioning (e.g., "plays enthusiasti-
cally"; "is affectionate toward others"; "well-liked
by classmates"; "shares things with others"). Factor
4, Rules, reflects the child's ability to function within
the constraints of the school environment (e.g., "is
polite and courteous"; "follows class rules"; "is well-
behaved in school"; "accepts legitimate imposed
limits"). The last factor, Frustration Tolerance,
measures the child's ability to cope with failure and
other social pressures (e.g., "copes well with failure";
"accepts criticism well"; "faces the pressures of
competition well"). Sum Factors is a composite index
of competence computed by summing the five indi-
vidual factor scores. Intcrcorrclalions among indi-
vidual HRI factors are positive and significant,
ranging from a low of .28 to a high of .53 (Mdn r
= .41).
The usual procedure of constructing approximate
factor scales exclusively from highly loading items
was not followed. Instead, exact factor scoring,
taking into account item intercorrelations largely
ignored by approximate scoring methods, was used
(Harmon, 1967).
Reliability, Reliability was tested by having 11 of
the 65 teachers do a second HRI rating of six ran-
domly selected students 4-6 weeks after the initial
rating. At that time six students were no longer in
their classes, leaving a reliability sample of 60 first
to third graders. Tcst-rctest reliabilities (rs) were as
follows: Sum Factors = .87 ; Good Student =- .83,
Gutsy — .77, Peer Sociability — .72, Rules - .91, and
Frustration Tolerance —' .87.
Parametric Analyses
Separate parametric analyses of sex, grade, and
residence differences were done for all five individual
factors and the summary index. Each of these analy-
ses used the full sample of 592 subjects.
Competence-Pathology Relations
Both HRI and symptom data were collected for a
sample of 183 children consisting of 98 boys, 85
girls; 69 city and 114 county children; and 76 first,
61 second, and 46 third graders. All subjects were
rated by the same teachers on both scales. Chi-square
tests among variables of sex, grade, and city/county
status were all nonsignificant. Symptoms were mea-
sured using the CARS, a 41-item behaviorally ori-
ented measure developed by Clarfield (1974). The
CARS yields three basic problem dimensions:
Learning (14 items); Acting-Out (10 items); and
Shy-Anxious (12 items) as well as a factor sum and
a total maladjustment score, which sums all 41 items.
Normal and Disturbed Child Comparisons
Forty-two boys attending ungraded classes in day-
treatment schools at two Rochester community
mental health centers comprised the clinically identi-
fied patient group for this study. These subjects
averaged 112 months in age (range, 79-131). Chil-
dren are admitted to these special cducational-thcra-
778 ELLIS L. GESTEN

TABLE 1
1IKI ITEMS LISTED BY FACTOR

Factor Factor
score score
coeffi- coeffi-
Item cient" Loading Item cient" Loading

Factor 1 : Good Student Factor 3 : Peer Sociability

1. Functions well even 36. Tries to help others .10 .37

with distractions .10 .53 39. Has many friends .16 .56
3. Applies learning to 43. Knows his or her
new situations .11 .58 strengths and weak-
5. Is interested in school nesses -.10 -.11
work .11 .55
11. Does original work .15 .64
24. Is a self-starter .11 .56 [•'actor 4 : Rul es
26. Completes his home--
work .14 .54 7. Is well-behaved in
30. Works well without school .15 .78
adult support .10 .54 18. Follows class rules .16 .80
35. Is good in arithmetic .17 .72 29. Is trustworthy .14 .73
40. Works up to potential .11 .57 32. Carries out requests
47. Is a good reader .14 .66 and directions
_ _ _- .. . _ _ _ responsibly .10 .56
Factor 2 : Gulsy 42. Accepts legitimate
imposed limits .14 .74
~ " 53. Rarely requires re-
14. Defends his views strictions or sanctions .13 .71
under group pressure .21 .80 54. Is polite and courte-
19. Participates in class ous .16 .81
discussions .18 .72
20. Is able to question
rules that seem unfair Factor 5 : Frustration Tolerance
or unclear to him .25 .86
31. Expresses ideas will- 2. Feels good about
ingly .18 .73 himself or herself .11 .41
45. Expresses needs and 9. Approaches new ex-
feelings appropriately .14 .53 periences confidently .10 .38
48. Is comfortable as a .11 .51 12. Can accept things
leader and follower not going his way .15 .52
50. Is spontaneous .11 .52 15. Mood is balanced and
14 48
Factor 3 : Peer Sociability 16. Resolves peer prob-
lems on his own .13 .44
17. Copes well with
4. Has a good sense of failure .32 .84
humor .14 .51 23. Is generally relaxed .10 .39
6. Shares things with 26. Completes his home-
others .14 .48 work --.14 -.18
10. Is a happy child .12 .49 27. Has a lively interest
22. Is affectionate toward in his environment -.10 -.09
others .22 .70 38. Faces the pressures
25. Plays enthusiastically .25 .60 of competition well .16 .52
27. Has a lively interest 44. Adjusts well to
in his environment .14 .44 changes in the class-
34. Well liked by class- room routine .11 .41
mates .10 .60 46. Accepts criticism well .19 .60
Note. HRI -- Health Resources Inventory.
 A HEALTH RESOURCES INVENTORY
peutic placements because of severe emotional prob-
lems that preclude attending regular public school
classes. Most patient group children were function-
ing significantly below grade level academically. The
local area pattern is such that the sample included
both city and county children and was socioeco-
nomically heterogeneous. Classroom teachers sub-
mitted HRI and CARS data for the disturbed sam-
ple (patient group), which was matched for age
and sex with 58 children (controls) from the norma-
tive sample.
A second subset of matched normal and disturbed
groups was selected, controlling for overall pathology
using the CARS, as well as sex and age. The clinic
group averaged 10S months in age (range, 79-119)
and included 34 subjects (28 boys and 6 girls). Be-
cause of stringent matching requirements, the selected
pathology-matched normative control group (N =
24) included only 18 males and 6 females. The chi-
square between variables of sex and group status
(clinic or normative control) was nonsignificant.
Extreme Group Competence Contrasts
Ten first- to third-grade teacher pairs from six
Rochester suburban schools participated in this study.
One member of each pair was asked to identify chil-
dren with different competence levels from his/her
class—three each of the (a) most competent, (b)
least competent, and (c) middle competent. Without
knowledge of the first teacher's judgments or infor-
mation about the selection criteria, the second teacher
independently completed HRIs for the nine selected
children. To insure reasonably equivalent familiarity
with the children, teacher pairs were only used if
both members spent a significant part of the day
with all children in the group from which selections
were made (Mdn group size — 21; range, 14-46).
Most often this happened because of a team teach-
ing arrangement.
RESULTS
The results are presented in four major sec-
tions pertaining, respectively, to (a) para-
metric analyses, (b) competence-pathology
relations, (c) normal-disturbed comparisons,
and (d) extreme group competence contrasts.
Parametric Analyses
A three-way unweighted-means analysis of
variance (Winer, 1971) was used to test for
competence differences by grade level (first,
second, and third), sex, and residence (city or
county). Six separate analyses of variance
were done for the five individual factors and
the factor sum. Table 2 summarizes the main
effect group mean comparisons.
On five of the six comparisons—on all ex-
cept Frustration Tolerance—county children
779
had significantly higher scores than city chil-
dren. Girls had significantly higher HRI scores
than boys on five of the six comparisons, the
exception being Gutsy. Although there was
some tendency for older children to have
higher HRI scores, the only significant grade
difference was for Gutsy. Only 2 of 28 possi-
ble interaction terms, both involving a Sex X
Location interaction, were statistically signifi-
cant.
Competence-Pathology Relations
A S X 6 correlational matrix (see Table 3)
summarizes relations between (a) the five
individual HRI factors and the HRI factor
sum (i.e., 6 variables) and (b) the three indi-
vidual CARS factors, CARS factor sum, and
total CARS scores (i.e., 5 variables).
These 30 correlations include three distinct
groups: (a) HRI versus CARS summary
scores, (b) individual HRI versus CARS fac-
tors, and (c) individual HRI and CARS fac-
tors versus the summary scores for each scale.
The negative correlations indicate the inverse
relation between competence and pathology.
Twenty-nine of the 30 correlations ranging
from —.22 to —.81 were significant.
The highest correlations, around —.80, are
those between the summary scores of the two
measures. The 10 correlations between the
five individual HRI factors and the two CARS
summary scores range from —.43 to —.71,
with a median of —.61.
The 15 correlations between individual HRI
and CARS factors ranged from —.14 to —.80,
with a median of —.50. The three most highly
related variable pairs are (a) Rules and Acting
Out (-.80), (b) Good Student and Learning
( — .79), and (c) Frustration Tolerance and
Shy Anxious ( — .70). The four lowest corre-
lations are between (a) Good Student and
Shy Anxious (-.32), (b) Rules and Shy
Anxious ( — . 2 6 ) , (c) Peer Sociability and
Learning ( — .22), and (d) Gutsy and Acting
Out (-.14).
Normal-Disturbed Child Comparisons
Six t tests for independent samples, five for
individual HRI factors and one for the sum-
mary score, compared mean scores of the nor-
mal and disturbed samples. In all six cases
780 ELLIS L. GESTEN

TABLE 2
HRI MAIN EFFECT MEANS AND RESULTS op ANALYSES OF VARIANCE

HRI score (location) City (N = 300) County (N = 292)

Good Student 2.47 2.76 12.65***

Gutsy 3.08 3.40 18.26***
Peer Sociability 4.46 4.71 7.92**
Rules 3.23 3.58 17.35***
Frustration Tolerance 2.76 2.80 .16
Sum Factors 16.01 17.26 16.62***

HRT score (sex) Boys (N = 311) Girls (N = 281)

Good Student 2.48 2.77 11.43***

Gutsy 3.19 3.29 1.04
Peer Sociability 4.47 4.71 8.24**
Rules 3.19 3.64 33.99***
Frustration Tolerance 2.66 2.93 10.23**
Sum Factors 15.99 17.34 19.12***

HRI score (grade level) 1 (N = 237) 2 (N = 197) 3 (N = 158)

Good Student 2.58 2.61 2.74 .34

Gutsy 3.13 3.29 3.34 3.00*
Peer Sociability 4.58 4.59 4.59 .09
Rules 3.38 3.38 3.47 .41
Frustration Tolerance 2.75 2.72 2.92 1.88
Sum Factors 16.42 16.60 16.99 1.18
Note-. IIRt = Health Resources Inventory.
* l> < .05.
** f < .01.
*** f < .0(11.

the normative sample had significantly higher
HRI scores.
An identical set of comparisons was made
between the mean HRT scores of the pathol-
ogy-matched clinic and normative samples.
None of these differences were significant.
Extreme Group Competence Contrasts
Six separate one-way analyses of variance
tested mean competence differences among
three criterion groups on the HRI factor and
summary scores. All six Fs were highly sig-
nificant; in each case the high-competent
(Sample A) teacher-rated groups had the
highest mean HRI scores followed, respec-
tively, by the middle (Sample B) and least
competent (Sample C) groups. Comparison of
subgroup means using Duncan's multiple-range
test (Winer, 1971) indicates that in all six
cases the differences between most and least

TABLE 3
CORRELATIONS BETWEEN HRI AND CARS

HRT Acting Out Shy Anxious Learning Factor Sum Raw Total

Good Student -.38** -.32** -.79** -.65** -.65**

Gutsy -.14 -.50** -.51** -.48** -.52**
Peer Sociability -.31** -.55** -.22* -.43** -.45**
Rules -.80** -.26** -.46** -.61** -.57**
Frustration Tolerance -.56** -.70** -.51** -.71** -.72**
Sum [''actors -.62** -.65** -.69** -.80** -.81**

Nate, HRI — Health Resources Inventory; CARS = Classroom Activity Rating Scale; N ~ 18.1
* f < .01.
** f < .001.
 A HEALTH RESOURCES INVENTORY 781

TABLE 4 scale variance. Each component subscale is

HEALTH RESOURCES TN NORMAL AND internally consistent and represents an im-
DISTURBED GROUPS portant aspect of a broadly defined concept of
competence in young school children. Test-
C (2V =58) E (2V =42)
retest reliability was satisfactorily high.
Factor M SD M SD / W = 98) Parametric results for the most part paral-
Good Student 2.28 .95 1.86 .80 2.29* lel prior findings with symptom scales used
Gutsy 3.14 .97 2.49 .86 3.52***
with normal and disturbed children. For ex-
Peer
Sociability 4.32 .97 3.47 .99 4.24*** ample, just as boys are consistently judged to
Rules 2.97 1.06 2.36 .76 3.18**
Frustration
Tolerance 2.52 1.05 1.03 .82 7.55***
be more maladjusted than girls on symptom
Factor Sum 15.24 3.60 11.21 2.35 6.28*** measures (Brownbridge & VanVleet, 1969),
Note. C = normative group; E — disturbed group.
girls in this study were rated significantly
* /> < .02.
**p < .002.
more competent than boys except on the
*** p < .001. Gutsy (adaptive assertiveness) factor. Given
the significantly higher scores for girls on all
competent (A:C) and those between middle other competence factors, the absence of sex
and least competent (B:C) were statistically differences on Gutsy identifies these behaviors
significant. Three of the differences between as an area of relative strength for boys. This
most and middle competent groups (A:B) is consistent with cultural stereotypes by
were statistically significant (i.e., Good Stu- which boys are seen (and socialized) as ac-
dent, Frustration Tolerance, and Sum Fac- ceptably more assertive and aggressive than
tors; see Table 4). girls.
Just as past studies with symptom scales
DISCUSSION reported that urban children have more prob-
This discussion consists of four major parts lems than suburbanites (Clarfield, 1972;
dealing, respectively, with (a) HRI scale Glidewell & Swallow, 1969), city children in
development and parametric studies; (b) re- this study were judged to have fewer compe-
lations between competencies and problem tencies than county children. These findings
behaviors; (c) validity studies; and (d) limi- are consistent with earlier reports of social
tations and suggestions for future work. class differences in school adjustment (Glide-
well & Swallow, 1969). The prior demonstra-
Scale Development and Parametric Studies
tion of more problem behaviors in city as
Initial tests of the HRI's psychometric compared to county children plus the present
properties revealed a stable five-factor struc- finding that city children also have fewer
ture accounting for roughly 70% of the total interpersonal, academic, and self-esteem-

TABLE5
EXTREME GROUP COMPETENCE COMPARISONS

Group Duncan's
multiple-range
High (A) Middle (B) Low (C) test (p)

HRI factor M SD M SD M SD /<'« A:C B:C A:B

Good Student 3.47 .74 3.06 .83 1.40 .73 60.34 .01 .01 .05
Gutsy 3.76 .67 3.40 .69 2.49 .86 23.32 .01 .01 ns
Peer Sociability 5.09 .74 4.72 .73 4.05 .84 13.92 .01 .01 ns
Rules 3.83 .67 3.41 .82 2.66 .98 15.30 .01 .01 ns
Frustration Tolerance 3.33 .90 2.80 .91 1.57 .98 28.29 .01 .01 .05
Factor Sum 19.50 3.07 17.41 2.95 12.17 2.63 51.12 .01 .01 .01
Nole. N — 30 in each group; HRI = Health Resources Inventory,
»All /'" values are significant at the ,001 level.
782 KLUS L. GESTEN
related competencies, highlights the challenges
facing urban school systems.
Although the current data indicate that
there are competence differences between ur-
ban and suburban children, they do not indi-
cate why this is so. Clarifying this complex
question can contribute to better school en-
vironments and interventions. However, these
same findings can also be interpreted to re-
flect the inappropriateness of using identical
competence indicators for socioeconomically
diverse groups. Although some care was taken
to avoid such bias in developing the measure,
nonetheless, certain items (e.g., "is polite
and courteous") do, in part, reflect middle-
class values.
There were few competence differences
across age-grade groups. This finding is some-
what inconsistent with earlier data suggesting
that school adjustment problems increase with
age (Cowen et al., 1973; Glidewell & Swallow,
1969). But several theories about skill and
competence acquisition can accommodate the
present findings (Burner, 1970; White, 1959).
According to these views competence is ac-
quired slowly as part of a broader develop-
mental process that involves small day-to-day
increments throughout infancy and early
childhood. Additionally, the growth of compe-
tence is in part dependent on the development,
of functional systems (e.g., intellectual, per-
ceptual, etc.) whose maturational markers do
not correspond to primary age-group delinea-
tions (see Table 5).
Competence-Pathology Relations
The correlations between HR1 and CARS
dimensions support some prior assumptions
about relations between health and pathology
but challenge others. The highly significant
overall interscale correlations (e.g., CARS
sum factor vs. HRI sum factor = —.80;
CARS total score vs. HRI sum factor --
— .81) support the traditional view that health
and pathology are inversely related. Thus, a
child's overall competence can be predicted
reasonably well from his/her total CARS
(symptom) score.
A strong inverse relation was also found on
several cross-measure, individual factor corre-
lations. The three highest such correlations,
perhaps understandably so, were between (a)
HRI Rules and CARS Acting Out (-.80),
(b) HRI Good Student and CARS Learning
(-.70), and (c) HRI Frustration Tolerance
and CARS Shy Anxious ( — .70). It is reason-
able that these correlations were high, since
in each case the construct definitions of the
paired variables are similar. Illustratively,
Rules measures a child's ability to function
well within the framework of the school en-
vironment, and Acting Out reflects the inabil-
ity to do so. The two factors are unipolar,
and they reflect opposite ends of a logical
continuum.
Other individual factor, cross-measure cor-
relations, however, did not follow the pattern
of high-inverse health-pathology relations.
Indeed, the overall pattern of HR1-CARS
factor scale correlations suggests that at the
subscale level the measures account for a rea-
sonable amount of independent variance.
The three most independent factor pairs
were (a) HRI Rules and CARS Shy Anxious,
(b) HRI Peer Sociability and CARS Learn-
ing, and (c) HRT Gutsy and CARS Acting
Out. A common element that binds these in-
stances is the absence in each case of a logical
or conceptual basis for a cross-scale relation.
Rules identifies a child who lives in accord-
ance with the established regularities of the
environment, and Shy Anxious, the child who
has problems of shyness and withdrawal. Al-
though the latter can be real and disconcert-
ing, they do not typically involve challenges
to class order.
The correlation of .14 between HRI Gutsy
and CARS Acting Out, the only nonsignificant
cross-scale interfactor correlation, is among
the study's more interesting findings. Gutsy
is adaptive assertiveness; CARS Acting Out
taps aggressive acting-out behaviors. Although
prior data (Beilin, 1959; Glidewell & Swal-
low, 1969; Schrupp & Gjerde, 1953; Sparks,
1952) indicating strong teacher concern about
children's aggressive acting-out behavior
might, on the surface, suggest a relationship
between Acting Out and Gutsy, this was not
found. Teachers discriminated well between
problem-related and assertively adaptive ag-
gressiveness. The low Gutsy-Acting Out
correlation identifies an important area of
 A HEALTH RESOURCES INVENTORY
independence between the health and symp-
tom scales used and helps to dispel the view
that the presence of pathology necessarily
implies the absence of competencies.
Empirical Validity
Recognizing that there is no single defini-
tive validity criterion for a test, a step-by-step
incremental approach for establishing the
HRI's validity was adopted. Accordingly, two
empirical studies confirmed the scale's ability
to discriminate between clinically disturbed
and normal children and to distinguish levels
of competence within the normative sample.
This second finding is especially significant in
light of attenuated competence scores found
among suburban children. Even though the
"least competent" normative group included
a high percentage of relatively healthy chil-
dren, and few with severe competence deficits,
the measure discriminated not only between
the most and least competent teacher-identi-
fied children but also between both extreme
groups and midcompetent children.
That the HRI did not discriminate between
the disturbed sample and a select (bottom)
extreme symptom group from the normative
sample is not disconcerting for two reasons:
(a) The high negative HR1-CARS overall
correlation favors such a finding, and (b) the
requirement that the groups be symptom
(CARS) matched markedly restricted the
normative pool, both in size, and to those with
extreme symptom scores. Many children in
this small, biased normative sample may have
needed, or been in, treatment.
Overview
Several limitations of this research qualify
the findings and point to directions for future
work. Two categories of concern that merit
specific mention are (a) methodological limi-
tations of the studies themselves and (b) limi-
tations of generalization.
One important methodological concern
stems from the presence of a dominant first
factor in the unrotated factor solution, similar
to Osgood's evaluative factor (Osgood, Suci, &
Tannenbaum, 1957). In some contrast, the
783
crux of the conceptual argument on which the
present competence model rests is that compe-
tence is best seen as a sum, perhaps weighted
(Jones, 1972), of many "competencies" in dif-
ferent domains. Although the size of the first
unrotated factor decreased significantly in the
rotated terminal solution along with increased
weighting of other competence components,
the initial first-factor dominance has implica-
tions for the view of competence being ad-
vanced. Several alternative explanations can
be considered to explain the finding, (a) Sta-
tistical integrity and meaningfulness of the
adopted solution notwithstanding, competence
may still be largely unidimensional. (b)
Teachers' ratings of children's competence
may be influenced by such factors as halo
effects or global "good-bad" sets, which—
perhaps strengthened by the almost exclusive
use of positively worded scale items—once
formed, bias individual item ratings, (c) Com-
petence, like intelligence, may have a general
factor. But, as with intelligence, there may
still be meaningful competence subcomponents
that, though related, have considerable inde-
pendence and diagnostic utility. In light of
both correlational and validity data, this third
explanation seems most plausible, especially
when combined with the second, nonmutually
exclusive, possibility.
Two other methodological issues relate to
the use of teachers as raters. Like most other
raters, teachers are not neutral. They are in-
vested in the system whose products they are
being asked to judge, and their training and
orientation to educational goals sensitize them
more to some behaviors than to others. As a
counterweight for such bias, it is important
that competence be studied from multiple
within-class perspectives, including judgments
of both peers and independent observers.
Such an approach has recently been shown to
be useful in assessing class environments
(Kaye, Trickett, & Quinlan, in press). A sec-
ond limitation is that because only a few
classes had a second observer who could judge
child competencies, a single teacher had to
complete both the pathology and health scales
for target children in the correlational study.
Although teachers were told to do the two
forms independently, this may not have been
784 ELLIS L. GESTEN
completely possible. Hence, health and pa-
thology correlations may have been spuriously
inflated.
The generalizability of the present findings
must also be qualified. The HRI was devel-
oped as a competence measure for young
school children. Since there is little reason to
assume that competence indicators are neces-
sarily the same either across situations or age
levels, the HRI should not be seen as a gen-
eralized competence measure. Further work
to provide richer, less situationally bound,
cross-sectional understandings of competence
requires that competencies be sampled in
other than school settings. If, for example,
the home or neighborhood has different values
or places different environmental demands on
the child, competence-defining marker items
would change substantially. Moreover, such
shifts might differ for different subareas. Il-
lustratively, if a home-based competence mea-
sure were to be developed for the age group
used in this research, the Good Student and
Rules factors might not generalize well be-
cause they are closely tied to the classroom.
By contrast, Peer Sociability, Gutsy, and
Frustration Tolerance, being more generic
competence indicators, might be less situa-
lionally bound and hence less affected. Analy-
sis of convergence and divergence of compe-
tence data from multiple observational frame-
works can illuminate the nature of effective
functioning.
It is also important to question whether
competence indicators for primary graders'
classroom functioning apply to other age levels
(e.g., upper primary, junior high school, etc.).
Sullivan (1953), Erikson (1963), Jones
(1972), and Havighurst (19S3) have all ar-
gued persuasively that competence skills differ
across age levels or stages of development.
Erikson, for example, argues that mastery of
the school environment is one of the major
competence challenges for the 6- to 12-year-
old. He speaks of the crucial development of
peer interaction and academic and self-con-
cept skills during these childhood years. On
the other hand, what defines competence for
a 7-year-old is different than the defining
characteristics for an 18-year-old who must
separate from the family, make it in the dat-
ing arena, establish independence, and choose
a career. Thus, there is a need to develop em-
pirically validated cross-age competence indi-
cators and/or new competence items and fac-
tors for age groups other than those of the
present subjects. Since new competencies are
acquired most rapidly in the early years, com-
petence indicators are likely to change most
rapidly in early childhood.
Related to the issue of developmental dif-
ferences in competence indicators is the ques-
tion of the meaning and stability of judged
competence. Just how meaningful is it that a
7-year-old school child is seen as competent
by his/her teacher? To what other behaviors
does this relate? And what does it say for the
future? Only through the development of age-
appropriate and situation-appropriate compe-
tence measures can such questions be studied.
Findings from the Berkeley Guidance Study
(Livson & Peskin, 1967; Macfarland, 1938;
Peskin, 1972) bear structurally on the ques-
tion of time stability, notwithstanding differ-
ences in the competence indices used in that
study and the present one. The Berkeley
study examined the differential power of four
age periods, from S to 16 years, in predicting
psychological health at maturity (Livson &
Peskin, 1967; Peskin, 1972). Long-term fol-
low-up of a group of 31 normal males and
females revealed complex discontinuities em-
bedded in an overall pattern of continuity in
health status. Following such a strategy, long-
term longitudinal data and valid later compe-
tence measures would be needed to test the
HRI's predictive power.
Twidence from the present study suggests
that the HRI is a potentially useful measure
of primary-grade children's competence. Cer-
tainly there is a need to learn more about
competencies and adaptive skills, in their own
right, and as a corrective to past emphases on
dysfunction and pathology. Although the HRI
offers a promising start in this direction, much
remains to be learned about the acquisition,
correlates, and consequences of competency
behaviors.
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 A HEALTH RESOURCES INVENTORY
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