Development of the Biases toward Children with Psychological and Behavioral Disorders Scale

Abstract

Although there have been studies of individual professional disciplines and their attitudes toward children with emotional, behavioral, or educational problems, there has been no systematic determination using a single, psychometrically sound measure that compared different professional groups. The goal was to assess the biases toward children with emotional and behavioral difficulties in samples of professionals who are most likely to have contact with them (86 teachers, 83 psychologists, 47 social workers), as well as other adults (75 undergraduate students). After development from an item pool, the provisional Biases toward Children with Psychological and Behavioral Disorders scale consisted of 21 items in one factor which experts also had assigned to a Biases category. The scale had good internal consistency reliability (alpha = .84). Validity was supported by a team of experts, factor structure, and known-groups comparisons. Psychologists and social workers scored lower than did teachers and students.

A saúde mental infantil na escola sob a perspectiva do professor

“…Dois artigos com instrumentos validados foram localizados, com objetivo de avaliar os estereótipos e a discriminação percebidos (da comunidade) em direção às crianças com problemas emocionais e/ou comportamentais [78,89].…”

“…No artigo de Joseph A. Hirsch [89], o instrumento tem 21 itens, sem vinhetas clínicas, possuindo afirmativas como: "a esquizofrenia é mais comum em crianças dos ricos do que de classe pobre", "a maioria dos atos violentos em escolas são cometidos por crianças psicóticas", "há algo nas crianças com distúrbios emocionais que as torna distintamente diferentes das crianças normais". Cada questão tem seis opções de resposta, variando de "concordo fortemente" (um ponto) a "discordo fortemente" (seis pontos).…”

“…A Biases toward Children with Psychological and Behavioral Disorders Scale, como o instrumento foi denominado, contou com os dados de 301 questionários e foi validado através das medidas geradas pela análise fatorial. A consistência interna foi boa, com alfa de Cronbach de 0,84 [89].…”