Measuring Effortful control in middle childhood: Psychometric properties of the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire - self-report

Effortful control (EC), defined as the ability to inhibit impulsive responses according to contextual demands, plays a key role in children’s socioemotional development. However, self-report measures of this ability are extremely scarce. The current study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the EC scale within the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire (TMCQ), the only available self-report measure of EC in middle childhood. Participants were 441 Italian children (53.7% girls) aged between 7.9-10 (Mage = 9.05, SD = 0.56). A series of confirmatory factor analyses supported a four-factor lower order structure, whereas evidence for the intended 1-factor higher order structure was not found. Structural equation modeling confirmed convergent validity of the questionnaire with theoretically related constructs such as self-worth, emotional-behavioral problems, and prosocial behavior, and confirmed inhibitory control and attentional focusing as core aspects of EC. Overall, the EC scale is a valuable tool for assessing temperament-based self-regulation in middle childhood using four separate scores, but reliability analyses suggest the need for refinement, and more research is needed to clarify its hierarchical structure in the TMCQ.