title: Psychometric properties of the parent and teacher forms of the Japanese version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study examined the psychometric properties of the parent and teacher forms of the Japanese version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ).
  
  
  METHODS
  Parents and teachers of 1487 elementary school children (759 boys and 728 girls aged 6-12 years) participated in this study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results of confirmatory factor analyses of the parent and teacher versions of the SDQ supported the five-factor structure reported in previous studies. However, factor invariance across sex was not observed. The alpha coefficients for the subscales of the SDQs varied between 0.55 and 0.86, the same reliability measures that were also reported in previous studies. Moreover, analyses of variance showed significant differences on all of the subscales according to sex and teacher-parent ratings.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The factor structure of the SDQ was generally supported, but more gender-segregated investigations of the factor structures are needed. Parents tended to give higher ratings on the difficulties and strengths of children compared to the teachers. Boys were rated higher than girls were on difficulties, while girls were rated higher than boys were on strengths.
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Psychological Science, Doshisha University, Japan. Electronic address: yukishibata.mail@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Yuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shibata
authors.affiliation: Center for Developmental Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry, Nagoya University, Japan.
authors.forename: Kaori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Okada
authors.affiliation: Center for Developmental Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry, Nagoya University, Japan.
authors.forename: Rie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fukumoto
authors.affiliation: Center for Developmental Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry, Nagoya University, Japan.
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nomura
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013663:Teaching
keywords: Elementary school; Factor invariance; Factor structure; Parent-rated; Reliability; Sex differences; Teacher-rated