Evaluation of the Problem Behavior Frequency Scale–Teacher Report Form for assessing behavior in a sample of urban adolescents.

Abstract

This study evaluated the structure and validity of the Problem Behavior Frequency Scale-Teacher Report Form (PBFS-TR) for assessing students' frequency of specific forms of aggression and victimization, and positive behavior. Analyses were conducted on two waves of data from 727 students from two urban middle schools (Sample 1) who were rated by their teachers on the PBFS-TR and the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS), and on data collected from 1,740 students from three urban middle schools (Sample 2) for whom data on both the teacher and student report version of the PBFS were obtained. Confirmatory factor analyses supported first-order factors representing 3 forms of aggression (physical, verbal, and relational), 3 forms of victimization (physical, verbal and relational), and 2 forms of positive behavior (prosocial behavior and effective nonviolent behavior), and higher-order factors representing aggression, victimization, and positive behavior. Strong measurement invariance was established over gender, grade, intervention condition, and time. Support for convergent validity was found based on correlations between corresponding scales on the PBFS-TR and teacher ratings on the SSIS in Sample 1. Significant correlations were also found between teacher ratings on the PBFS-TR and student ratings of their behavior on the Problem Behavior Frequency Scale-Adolescent Report (PBFS-AR) and a measure of nonviolent behavioral intentions in Sample 2. Overall the findings provided support for the PBFS-TR and suggested that teachers can provide useful data on students' aggressive and prosocial behavior and victimization experiences within the school setting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Deviant Peer Factors During Early Adolescence: Cause or Consequence of Physical Aggression?

“…Teachers spend a substantial portion of time with adolescents during the school year, have an opportunity to observe them interacting with peers, and are often the first to identify behavior problems (Orpinas, Raczynski, Peters, Colman, & Bandalos, ). This highlights the value of collecting teacher ratings as an additional source of information to supplement adolescents' own ratings (Farrell, Goncy, et al., ). Correlations between adolescents' and teachers' ratings of physical aggression in this study were low, although not atypical for measures between adolescents and teachers (De Los Reyes & Kazdin, ).…”

“…Farrell, Goncy, et al. () found support for the structure of the PBFS‐TR; established strong measurement invariance over gender, grade, intervention condition; and provided evidence of convergent validity based on correlations with student and teacher ratings on other measures of aggression and victimization. This study used the Physical Aggression subscale, consisting of seven items (e.g., “Hit or slapped someone” and “Shoved or pushed someone”).…”

“…The Problem Behavior Frequency Scale – Teacher Report (Farrell, Goncy, Sullivan, & Thompson, ) is a teacher‐report form of the PBFS. We recruited a core education teacher for each student from among those the team of teachers within each grade identified as most familiar with that student.…”

The Impact of Classroom Climate on Aggression and Victimization in Early Adolescence

“…Teacher-report of aggression and victimization. Aggression and victimization were assessed using four subscales of the Problem Behavior Frequency Scales-Teacher (Farrell, Goncy, Sullivan, & Thompson, 2018). Core academic teachers (i.e., English, history, math, and science) rated items on a 4-point Likert-type scale based on how frequently each behavior occurred (1 = Never, 2 = Sometimes, 3 = Often, 4 = Frequently).…”

Victimization, Aggression, and Other Problem Behaviors: Trajectories of Change Within and Across Middle School Grades

“…The validity of the revised version was supported by correlations between corresponding scores on the PBFS-AR and a teacher report version of the measure (Farrell, Goncy, Sullivan, & Thompson, 2017;Farrell, Thompson et al, 2017b). We conducted analyses on factor scores based on the thresholds and factor loadings obtained from the Farrell, Thompson et al (2017b) study that established the structure of the PBFS-AR based on item response theory analyses of the scale.…”