Publication Date

Spring 2017

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Carl Myers (Director), Samuel Kim, and Daniel McBride

Degree Program

Department of Psychology

Degree Type

Specialist in Education

Abstract

The assessment of children’s social-emotional skills, especially in the preschool years, is essential, as it yields early identification of problems and allows for appropriate interventions to be tried. School psychologists and other professionals use a variety of assessment methods (e.g., observations, interviews, behavior rating scales) to determine a child’s social-emotional abilities. Two popular behavior rating scales used frequently by professionals are the Behavior Assessment System for Children-Third Edition (BASC-3) and the Child Behavior Checklist 1.5-5 (CBCL 1.5-5). The current study examines the consistency of results from the two instruments. Fifty-six Head Start teachers from two regions of the country completed both the BASC-3 and the CBCL 1.5-5 at the same point of time while thinking of a specific student who displays behavioral concerns. The findings revealed that most of similarly named scales from the two instruments correlated significantly. However, 40% of those comparisons resulted in significantly different mean scores. Approximately half of the comparisons resulted in adequate classification consistency (i.e., either average or clinically significant). Overall, the findings imply that the two instruments do not always measure similarly named behavioral constructs in a consistent manner.

Disciplines

Child Psychology | Counseling Psychology | School Psychology

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