Bringing situations to life:: Validating the TRUST comic version, a situational judgement test of teachers’ social-emotional competence

Teachers’ social and emotional competence (SEC) is critical for personal well-being, professional development, and building healthy relationships in the classroom. Recently, the Test of Regulation in and Understanding of Social Situations in Teaching (TRUST) was developed by Aldrup et al. (2020). This paper-based textual situational judgement test assesses two key SECs, namely emotion regulation (ER) and relationship management (RM). Recognising the power of comics to portray culture, context, and scenarios, TRUST text-version was adapted into a visually engaging comic-strip format to enhance ecological validity, cultural inclusiveness, and accessibility. In collaboration with a creative arts designer, comic strips representing each scenario of the TRUST text-version were designed ensuring ethnic diversity, simple language, and clear emotional expressions of both teachers and students. The adapted instrument was validated using data from an in-service Indian teacher sample (N = 1234, 32.7% female). The final version comprises 13 visual scenarios (7 assessing ER and 6 assessing RM). The theoretically assumed two-factor model was supported by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) that demonstrated excellent model fit (CFI =.98, TLI =.97, RMSEA =.04). Internal consistency was high at the item-level (Cronbach’s αER =.90, αRM =.86) and satisfactory to high at the scenario-level (αER =.84, αRM =.77). The TRUST comic version offers a novel, culturally sensitive, scenario-based tool to assess SECs in educators, offering valuable opportunities for use in research and teacher training.