Exploring the reliability and validity of the social-moral awareness test.

Background The aim of the study was to explore the validity of the socialmoral awareness test (SMAT) a measure designed for assessing socio-moral rule knowledge and reasoning in people with learning disabilities. Comparisons between Theory of Mind and socio-moral reasoning allowed the exploration of construct validity of the tool. Factor structure, reliability and discriminant validity were also assessed. Materials and Methods Seventy-one participants with mildmoderate learning disabilities completed the two scales of the SMAT and two False Belief Tasks for Theory of Mind. Results Reliability of the SMAT was very good, and the scales were shown to be uni-dimensional in factor structure. There was a significant positive relationship between Theory of Mind and both SMAT scales. Conclusions There is early evidence of the construct validity and reliability of the SMAT. Further assessment of the validity of the SMAT will be required.