Classification Sociometry - A Practical Guide

This section covers the technical elements of classification sociometry. Before reading it, it may be worth reading the theoretical summary here.

Classification sociometry uses two important questions; "Who do you like most in the class?" and "Who do you like least in the class?". To use this option, both questions are definitely needed and limiting the number of answers to three is not recommended even if the test administrator would keep this limit in the other questions. A maximum of 10 answers is needed here.

To import the questionnaire, you can find the questions in the questionnaire editor under ‘browse questions’ and insert them into the questionnaire by pressing the "Import questionnaire" button. The two questions should be used alongside other questionnaires with standard sociometric questions, so that in addition to the usual information, the classification sociometric data will also be included in the report.

When evaluating the questions, the program generates a new kind of sociogram based on the answers to the above questions, showing the children's social preference and social impact on the X and Y axes, and also labels children by colour according to their category and by shape according to their gender.

The graph shows standardised values, i.e. zero represents the average number of votes and the standard deviation is one, aka negative numbers represent votes below average, positive numbers above average, above 1 and below -1 represent a significant difference from the average, and above 2 and below -2 represent a very significant difference.

It is important to keep in mind when interpreting the figure that the categories represent the current situation, and for children who fall slightly outside the 1 to -1 range the categorisation is significantly less reliable and should be treated accordingly. That said, it is important to note that the literature has shown significant differences in psychological variables along the lines of the categorisation, and school psychological care for children who are highly rejected or neglected may be recommended. Feedback of data to the class or to individual children in any form is not recommended.