Skalierung von “Theory of Mind“-Aufgaben
Abstract
Zusammenfassung. Die von Wellman und Liu (2004) für den englischsprachigen Raum entwickelte “Theory of Mind“-Skala wurde in einer Übersetzung (Hofer & Aschersleben, 2004) an einer Stichprobe von 107 3- bis 5-jährigen Kindern validiert. Sowohl die Annahme einer einheitlichen konzeptuellen Progression als auch die Skalenpassung konnten repliziert werden. Abweichend von Wellman und Liu (2004) fand sich ein Effekt der Aufgabenfolge mit einer besseren Skalenpassung und insgesamt besserer Performanz bei nach Schwierigkeit ansteigender Präsentation. Insgesamt sprechen die Befunde dafür, dass die deutsche Version der “Theory of Mind“-Skala die Entwicklung der begrifflichen Erschließung des mentalen Bereichs im Vorschulalter adäquat abbildet und eine zuverlässige Methode darstellt, den individuellen Stand der “Theory of Mind“-Entwicklung zu messen.
Abstract. This study investigated the validity of Wellman and Liu’s (2004) Theory-of-Mind Scale in a German translation (Hofer & Aschersleben, 2004), testing a sample of N = 107 German children aged 3 to 5. Our results confirm a stepwise conceptual progression and replicate the scaling of the tasks. In contrast to Wellman and Liu (2004), we found an order effect with better fit and performance when the tasks were presented ordered by increasing difficulty rather than in an arbitrary order. Thus, the results indicate that the German version of the Theory-of-Mind Scale reflects the development of children’s understanding of the mental domain during preschool years and provides an informative instrument for measuring individual children’s theory of mind competencies.
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