Interrater Reliability between Parents and Teachers Based on the Child's Grade Level: Behavior Assessment System for Children, Third Edition

The process of conducting child and adolescent psychoeducational assessments has changed over the past 2 decades (Shapiro & Heick, 2004). In the past, the school psychologists commonly concentrated on behavioral, achievement, and projective assessments and usually did not include systematic multi-rater observation rating scales of behavior. There is now consensus within the professional community that an assessment should meet three criteria including data from multiple methods, data from multiple sources, and data in multiple settings (Alfonso et al., 2020). Multimodal assessment provides a more in-depth perspective and creates less administrator biases, as multiple views of the child's functioning across contexts must be considered. It is not unusual for a child's teacher and parent to have varying views on a child's development, and if only one of these perspectives is considered, an assessment may become unfairly slanted (Alfonso et al, 2020). The current study aimed to understand interrater relationships between teachers and parents based on the grade level of the student. Participants were from an archival database from multiple school districts in rural Oregon. The Behavior Assessment System for Children, Third Edition parent-rating scales and teacher-rating scales were compared between students in elementary school and students in grades above elementary school. Students in elementary school encounter the highest interrater reliability between teachers and parents. There were no significant differences between pre/post COVID data suggesting the pandemic did not interfere with interrater reliability. This information may aid clinicians in understanding interrater relationships and the impact of providing multiple domains when observing children. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]