Elementary children's school friendship: A comparison of peer assessment methodologies

This study compared four methods of assessing children's friendships-peer nominations, peer ratings, reciprocal peer nominations, and social networking. A total of 174 children between first and third grades were assessed using child self-report. In addition, parent and teacher ratings of these children's friendship patterns were also evaluated. Results found that there was high agreement between reciprocal peer nominations, peer ratings, and the social networking procedure. Much lower levels of agreement were noted between peer nominations in general and reciprocated nomination procedures. Parents and teachers were found to have comparable levels of agreement but did not match exactly the child-reported reciprocal nomination procedure. Implications of these results for use by school psychologists are discussed.