Development of the Teacher-Informant Student Behavior Survey

Abstract

This report describes the development of a new, multidimensional teacher report inventory: the Student Behavior Survey (SBS). The SBS is intended to accompany other parent-informant and youth self-report scales constructed by the authors for use in the collection of multi-informant data for child assessments conducted in schools or clinics. The SBS has 102 items grouped into 11 scales that assess positive student attributes, such as academic skills, work habits, social skills, and the degree of parental participation in school, as well as problem behaviors, such as internalization, externalization, and poor relationships with others. The SBS was administered to large numbers of teachers of either regular education students or students receiving special education services or undergoing psychological evaluations. The psychometric characteristics of SBS items and scales are generally good. and scale scores discriminate between regular education and referred students, as well as among specific types of referred students. Overall, these results suggest that the SBS may be a useful instrument for assessing child adjustment at school.