USING MOTHERS VERSUS TRAINED OBSERVERS IN ASSESSING CHILDRENS SECURE BASE BEHAVIOR - THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The Attachment Q-Set (AQS) has emerged as a psychometrically sound met hod for assessing young children's secure base behavior in the home. H owever, considerable disagreement exists about whether mothers versus trained observers should be used as AQS sorters. The present study exa mined associations between mothers' and trained observers' AQS sorts f or preschoolers, and assessed mother-observer concordance in relation to observers' confidence about how representative the behavioral sampl es they witnessed were of the domain of AQS items. Mothers with carefu l training and supervision on the AQS system completed AQS sorts with regard to their children's current behavior, and the same children wer e assessed with the AQS during a 2-3 hour visit 1-2 weeks later by tra ined, ''blind'' observers. Trained observers provided a confidence rat ing regarding the degree to which the samples of behavior observed wer e representative of the universe of AQS items. Mothers' and observers' sorts were significantly intercorrelated; however, observer sorts con verged with mother sorts as observers' confidence ratings increased. R esults are discussed in relation to circumstances that affect mother-o bserver reliability with the AQS and to factors that should be weighed when considering whether to use mothers versus trained observers as s orters.