Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1979, 49, 383-388. @ Perceptual and Motor Skills 1979
BEHAVIOR RATING SCALES: NEED FOR REFINING NORMATIVE DATA1 MARCIA D. HORNE State University of New YorL at Albany
AND
BARBARA LARRIVEE Rhode lshnd College
Summa~y.-The purpose of this study was to generate normative data by grade and sex to accompany behavior rating scales. Teachers rated 483 boys and girls in Grades 1 through 4. The findings suggest raring scales be re-examined since norms by grade level and sex may be desirable attributes. The passage of P. L. 93-380 and P. L. 94-142 and the subsequent implementation of state mandates for the education of all handicapped children have underscored the need for systematic procedures for the screening and identification of behaviorally disordered children. The accuracy of teachers' judgments has received considerable attention in the literature; it seems that classroom teachers' ratings of "problem" behaviors exhibited by students may be as valid (Bower, 1970; Harth & Glavin, 1971; Keogh & Smith, 1970; Keogh, Tchir, & Windeguth, 1974). A variety of procedures for screening and identifying behaviorally disordered children have been discussed in the literature, The use of rating scales and checklists to guide teachers' discrimination of discrepant behavior represents a fairly common approach. Generally these measures consist of a series of characteristics or behaviors which are judged by teachers in terms of the degree they are exhibited by a student. Spivack and Swift (1973), however, reviewed several teachers' rating scales and concluded that they often lack reliability, validity, discriminative power, and that factors such as the students' age and sex may influence how they are rated by teachers. Other researchers have raised similar concerns (Anderson, et al., 1969; Keogh & Becker, 1973). Miller's (1972) research using the Pittsburgh Adjustment Survey Scales suggests independent norms by sex may be a desirable feature for rating scales. The purpose of this study was to explore further such normative data, since measures commonly reported on in the literature seldom contain normative data by grade and sex.
METHOD The sample included 483 students enrolled in 20 elementary classrooms. There were 99 students in Grade 1 ( 5 3 males and 46 females), 89 in Grade 2 (43 males and 46 females), 139 in Grade 3 (63 females and 76 males), and 156 in Grade 4 (85 females and 71 males). The behavioral patterns exhibited were the result of ratings by the 20 classroom teachers. These were done using a modified form of the Devereaux 'Department of Educational Psychology and Statistics, Education 236, Srate Univer. *of New York at Albany, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany, N. Y. 12222.
M. D . HORNE
384
&
B. LARRIVEE
Elementary School Behavior Rating Scale (Spivack & Swift, 1967). The scale, constructed to represent a full range of behaviors existing in regular classroom settings, measures students' performance in terms of 11 behavioral factors: (1) Classroom Disturbance, ( 2 ) Impatience, (3.) Disrespect-Defiance, ( 4 ) External Blame, ( 5 ) Achievement Anxiety, ( 6 ) External Reliance, ( 7 ) Comprehension, (8) Inattentive-Withdrawn, ( 9 ) Irrelevant-Responsiveness, ( 10) Creative Initiative, and ( 11) Need for Closeness to the Teacher. Means and standard deviations for the factors and adequate reliabilities ( 3 5 to .91) are reported; however, norms by grade and sex are not. The modification of the scale used in this study facilitated the concurrent rating of all students in each classroom. Thus the scale was arranged so that every child's name appeared across the top of each page and items appeared along the vertical axis yielding a grid, i.e., child by item. It was felt that judging students item by item would: ( 1 ) increase the subjectiviry of the ratings by concrolling for the "halo effect," ( 2 ) decrease the probability of teacher ratings which represent an effort to describe a consistent behavioral pattern, ( 3 ) increase the probabiliry of arriving at ratings which are relative to behaviors of other "average" classroom members and ( 4 ) result in a considerable decrease in the amount of time required for a teacher to rate students in the classroom. Individual and small group meetings were held with all teachers to familiarize them with the procedure for using the scale in accordance with the rating guide provided by the authors of the scale. Ratings were completed within a 4- to 6-wk. period after the beginning of the school year. RESULTSAND DISCUSSION A two-way analysis of variance for grade and sex was computed for the 11 behavioral factors using the SPSS (Nie, et al., 1975), subprogram ANOVA SUMMARY
TABLE 1 ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE FOR EFFECT OF GRADE AND SEX
Behavioral Factor
1. Classroom Disturbance
2. Impatience 3. Disrespect-Defiance
4. External Blame 5. Achievement Anxiety 6. External Reliance 7. Comprehension 8. Inattentive-Withdrawn 9. Irrelevant-Responsiveness 10. Creative Initiative 11. Need Closeness
* p < .05.
Grade
Sex
Fs.rrs
PI.,,
3.89* 5.43' 7.47' 13.45* 2.77 6.70*
BEHAVIOR RATING SCALES: NEED FOR REFINING NORMATIVE DATA1 MARCIA D. HORNE State University of New YorL at Albany
AND
BARBARA LARRIVEE Rhode lshnd College
Summa~y.-The purpose of this study was to generate normative data by grade and sex to accompany behavior rating scales. Teachers rated 483 boys and girls in Grades 1 through 4. The findings suggest raring scales be re-examined since norms by grade level and sex may be desirable attributes. The passage of P. L. 93-380 and P. L. 94-142 and the subsequent implementation of state mandates for the education of all handicapped children have underscored the need for systematic procedures for the screening and identification of behaviorally disordered children. The accuracy of teachers' judgments has received considerable attention in the literature; it seems that classroom teachers' ratings of "problem" behaviors exhibited by students may be as valid (Bower, 1970; Harth & Glavin, 1971; Keogh & Smith, 1970; Keogh, Tchir, & Windeguth, 1974). A variety of procedures for screening and identifying behaviorally disordered children have been discussed in the literature, The use of rating scales and checklists to guide teachers' discrimination of discrepant behavior represents a fairly common approach. Generally these measures consist of a series of characteristics or behaviors which are judged by teachers in terms of the degree they are exhibited by a student. Spivack and Swift (1973), however, reviewed several teachers' rating scales and concluded that they often lack reliability, validity, discriminative power, and that factors such as the students' age and sex may influence how they are rated by teachers. Other researchers have raised similar concerns (Anderson, et al., 1969; Keogh & Becker, 1973). Miller's (1972) research using the Pittsburgh Adjustment Survey Scales suggests independent norms by sex may be a desirable feature for rating scales. The purpose of this study was to explore further such normative data, since measures commonly reported on in the literature seldom contain normative data by grade and sex.
METHOD The sample included 483 students enrolled in 20 elementary classrooms. There were 99 students in Grade 1 ( 5 3 males and 46 females), 89 in Grade 2 (43 males and 46 females), 139 in Grade 3 (63 females and 76 males), and 156 in Grade 4 (85 females and 71 males). The behavioral patterns exhibited were the result of ratings by the 20 classroom teachers. These were done using a modified form of the Devereaux 'Department of Educational Psychology and Statistics, Education 236, Srate Univer. *of New York at Albany, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany, N. Y. 12222.
M. D . HORNE
384
&
B. LARRIVEE
Elementary School Behavior Rating Scale (Spivack & Swift, 1967). The scale, constructed to represent a full range of behaviors existing in regular classroom settings, measures students' performance in terms of 11 behavioral factors: (1) Classroom Disturbance, ( 2 ) Impatience, (3.) Disrespect-Defiance, ( 4 ) External Blame, ( 5 ) Achievement Anxiety, ( 6 ) External Reliance, ( 7 ) Comprehension, (8) Inattentive-Withdrawn, ( 9 ) Irrelevant-Responsiveness, ( 10) Creative Initiative, and ( 11) Need for Closeness to the Teacher. Means and standard deviations for the factors and adequate reliabilities ( 3 5 to .91) are reported; however, norms by grade and sex are not. The modification of the scale used in this study facilitated the concurrent rating of all students in each classroom. Thus the scale was arranged so that every child's name appeared across the top of each page and items appeared along the vertical axis yielding a grid, i.e., child by item. It was felt that judging students item by item would: ( 1 ) increase the subjectiviry of the ratings by concrolling for the "halo effect," ( 2 ) decrease the probability of teacher ratings which represent an effort to describe a consistent behavioral pattern, ( 3 ) increase the probabiliry of arriving at ratings which are relative to behaviors of other "average" classroom members and ( 4 ) result in a considerable decrease in the amount of time required for a teacher to rate students in the classroom. Individual and small group meetings were held with all teachers to familiarize them with the procedure for using the scale in accordance with the rating guide provided by the authors of the scale. Ratings were completed within a 4- to 6-wk. period after the beginning of the school year. RESULTSAND DISCUSSION A two-way analysis of variance for grade and sex was computed for the 11 behavioral factors using the SPSS (Nie, et al., 1975), subprogram ANOVA SUMMARY
TABLE 1 ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE FOR EFFECT OF GRADE AND SEX
Behavioral Factor
1. Classroom Disturbance
2. Impatience 3. Disrespect-Defiance
4. External Blame 5. Achievement Anxiety 6. External Reliance 7. Comprehension 8. Inattentive-Withdrawn 9. Irrelevant-Responsiveness 10. Creative Initiative 11. Need Closeness
* p < .05.
Grade
Sex
Fs.rrs
PI.,,
3.89* 5.43' 7.47' 13.45* 2.77 6.70*
