An assessment of the internal consistency of measures of constructs of the Dortmund Developmental screening for 5-6 years old children

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the reliability of DESK 3-6 for children 5-6 years old of age through the use of methods such are internal consistency reliability, test-retest and Cronbach’s alpha, as well as check its suitability on a different sample. Participants were 484 preschool children (243 boys and 241 girls) with ages ranging from 60 to 78 months. The Dortmund Developmental Screening for Preschools (Tröster, Flender, & Reineke, 2004) was used. Results revealed that the original version of DESK 3-6 for children 5-6 years old of age shows problems in internal consistency, adequate Cronbach alpha and test-retest coefficients. It is concluded that the present instrument appears to carry enough data to justify its use on other samples as well.