Assessing romantic competence in adolescence: The Romantic Competence Interview

This article presents preliminary psychometric data on the reliability and validity of the newly developed Romantic Competence Interview (RCI). The RCI is an interviewer-assessed measure designed to assess competence among adolescents regardless of romantic relationship status. Eighty-three early adolescent girls (m age=13.45 years) recruited from local school districts were administered the RCI along with other measures of social competence, and peer and romantic functioning. Concurrent and 1-year predictive associations were examined. Results indicated that the RCI was reliably coded and demonstrated good construct validity. Implications for the conceptualization and measurement of romantic competence are discussed, as is the importance of attending to issues of competence early in adolescence.