A Preliminary Validation of a French Version of the Children’s Attributional Style Questionnaire

In the French culture, the absence of a valid measure of children’s attributional style has limited the testing of this phenomenon nationally. In this study, a French equivalent of the English language version of the Children’s Attributional Style Questionnaire (CASQ; Kaslow, Tannenbaum & Seligman, 1978) was developed using a five-step process. Multiple methods and samples were used to examine the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. To test the content validity of the French version of the CASQ, five experts were asked about the accuracy of the items in terms of psychological and translation quality. Concurrent validity was established in a sample of 47 bilingual children. The questionnaire was then administered on three occasions to two samples of children (n1 = 118, n2 = 200) ranging in age from 8 to 12 years. The results demonstrated that the French version of the CASQ has acceptable content and concurrent validity and test-retest reliability. However, consistent with a number of previous studies of the English language version of the CASQ, the internal consistency reliabilities of the scales and subscales of the French version were less than optimal.