Development of the Mental Imagery Scale for Preschool Children using Classical Test Theory and Item Response Theory

Abstract

This study aimed to develop a measure of mental imagery evaluation in preschool children. Three studies were conducted: Study 1 focused on the exploration of the factorial structure, reliability, and Item Response Theory (IRT) discrimination on a sample of children from 4 to 5 years old (N = 100; 50% males and 50% females); Study 2 focused on the confirmation of results about dimensionality on a sample of children from 4 to 7 years old (N = 170; 50% males and 50% females); and Study 3 focused on verifying criterion validity on a sample of children from 4 to 5 years old (N = 70; 47.1% males and 52.9% females). The results confirmed the hypothesis of three reliable factors underlying the scale for the three tasks: Blind Touch, Are Letters and Forms Similar?, and Snail’s Walk. Findings from item parameterization showed a reasonably good discrimination power and low difficulty. Overall, our research has shown that the Mental Imagery Scale for Preschool Children (MIS-PC) is a valuable tool for measuring preschoolers’ mental imagery and encourages its application in the educational context.