Development and validation of a social emotional skills scale: Evidence of its reliability and validity in China

•Validation of a social and emotional skills scale.•Use CASEL framework to evaluate social emotional learning outcomes.•High reliability and validity for Chinese elementary students.•Measurement invariances by grade and gender were roughly confirmed.•Concurrent validity was supported by the relation of social emotional skills and SDQ. This study aimed to develop a brief student-reported social emotional skills scale to evaluate social emotional learning outcomes based on the CASEL framework. The original version of the social emotional skills scale consisted of 70 items which were mainly adopted from existing related scales. After two rounds of exploratory factor analysis with samples of 1,675 and 1,389 Chinese elementary students, a 5-factor and 38-item construct was refined. This construct was further supported with good fitness by confirmatory factor analysis with another sample of 891 students. Measurement invariances by grade and gender were roughly confirmed. Concurrent validity was supported by the correlation matrix between social emotional skills scale and the strength and difficulties questionnaire. Limitations and implications are finally discussed.