About the Measure
| Domains | Emotional Intelligence (mixed and trait), Social and Emotional Competence |
| Key stages | Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4, Key Stage 5 |
| Subscales | Certainty about mental states; Uncertainty about mental states |
| Description | Reflective functioning refers to our capacity to understand ourselves and others in terms of intentional mental states, such as feelings, desires, wishes, goals and attitudes. |
| Example | People’s thoughts are a mystery to me |
| Link | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychoanalysis/research/rfq |
| Psychometry | |
| Implementation |
Implementation details
| No. of items | 46 |
| Format | Likert |
| Respondent | Self |
| Scoring | Standardised |
| Time | 0 |
| Age | 12-18 |
| Cost single purchase | Free |
| Cost per child | Free |
Psychometric details
| UK norms | No |
| Cronbach's α | .64-.71 |
| Test retest | Not reported |
| Inter-rater reliability | Not reported |
| EFA | Not reported |
| CFA | Chi-square(47) = 74.45 n=123 CFI = .96 RMSEA = .07 WRMR= .73 |
| Criterion validity | Not reported |
| Construct validity | The Reflective Function Questionnaire (RFQ) certainty subscale was positively correlated with mindfulness dimensions (r = .38 for Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills acting with awareness scales (KIMSac); r= .23 for Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills describing subscale (KIMSdes); Negatively associated with two of the alexithymia dimensions (r= -.43 for Toronto Alexithymia Scale identifying feelings (TASif) and r= -.33 for Toronto Alexithymia Scale describing feelings (TASdf). |
| Concurrent validity | Not reported |
| Predictive validity | Not reported |
| Responsiveness | Not reported |
| Floor/Ceiling | Not reported |
| References | Sharp, C., Williams, L., Ha, C., Baumgardner, J., Michonski, J., Seals, R., et al. (2009). The development of a mentalization-based outcomes and research protocol for an adolescent in-patient unit. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 73(4), 311–338. doi:10.1521/bumc.2009.73.4.311 Badoud, D., Luyten, P., Fonseca-Pedrero, E., Eliez, S., Fonagy, P., & Debbané, M. (2015). The French version of the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire: Validity data for adolescents and adults and its association with non-suicidal self-injury. PLOS one, 10(12), e0145892. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0145892 |