title: Content and cultural validity in the development of the Indigenous Play Partner Scale.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Culturally relevant assessments of Australian Indigenous children's social pretend play do not exist. This study investigated the content validity and cultural validity of the Indigenous Play Partner Scale (I-PPS).
  
  
  METHODS
  Six pairs of children (i.e. 12 children) aged four-six years from a remote Australian town were videoed playing in pairs, and 14 community elders and mothers participated across three focus groups. The social interactions between the children were transcribed from the videos. Nineteen verbs, grouped into five categories of social interaction, described the social interactions between the pairs of children. The descriptions of the social interaction verbs were presented to the community elders and mothers in a focus group.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The themes from the focus groups were 'background of Indigenous understanding of play' and 'proposed social interaction verbs'. The first theme reflected community collaboration, children playing in multi-aged groups and the role of older children within the play. Guided by the focus group discussion, the videos were re-analysed and 20 social interaction verbs were described that reflected the cultural context of play.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The content and cultural validity of the I-PPS was established through community consultation. Twenty social interaction verbs, which form the basis of the items of the I-PPS, reflected Indigenous cultural values of being non-judgemental of Indigenous children's social interactions during pretend play. Culturally relevant assessments for Australian Indigenous children do not disadvantage this population group and are essential for practice in occupational therapy.
authors.affiliation: School of Occupational Therapy and Social Work, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia.
authors.forename: Alma M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Dender
authors.affiliation: Occupational Therapy Program and Child Play Therapy, School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Karen E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Stagnitti
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D016901:Intergenerational Relations; D008297:Male; D010988:Play and Playthings; D044382:Population Groups; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012919:Social Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*
keywords: content validity; culturally relevant assessment; indigenous pretend play