Informant Effects on Behavioral and Academic Associations: A Latent Variable Longitudinal Examination

Abstract

Discrepancies among informants' ratings of a given child's behavior complicate the study of linkages between child behavior and academic achievement. In the current study, we examined the potential moderating effect of informant type on associations between behavior and two types of achievement in a longitudinal growth model that captured children's development from 54 months of age through fifth grade. Latent internalizing and externalizing behavioral constructs, as separately measured by mothers and teachers, were modeled as time-varying predictors of achievements to capture changes that occur as children progress through different developmental stages. Behavioral ratings obtained by both informants explained largely equivalent levels of reading achievement variance, and teachers' ratings of child behavior explained more variance in analytic type achievements than did those of mothers. C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Multilevel multitrait–multimethod latent analysis of structurally different and interchangeable raters of school climate.

“…Measurements of school climate are often obtained through student and teacher reports. These informant solicitations are likely to include variations within a given school that result from perceptions of their personal situation, informant variations across schools that are a function of school climate differences, and commonalities among informants that capture shared perspectives (Konold et al, 2014). The multilevel nature of the current analysis provided a means for evaluating common trait variance across informant types and the contrasting role of within (i.e., unique) and between (i.e., common) school influences of students and teachers as informants on the measurement of school-level constructs of climate.…”

“…Whereas in informant-based systems of assessment, method effects have been found with different informant types (e.g., self, mothers, fathers, caregivers, teachers, teacher aides, etc.) when employed for purposes of measuring a variety of outcomes including affective experiences (Bleidorn & Peters, 2011), child (Konold & Pianta, 2007) and adolescent (Konold & Glutting, 2008) behaviors, depression and anxiety (Eid et al, 2008), disease and injury (Sundblad, Saartok, Engström, 2006), health and well-being (Waters, Stewart-Brown, & Fitzpatrick, 2003), quality of life (Ellert, Ravens-Sieberer, Erhart, & Kurth, 2011), and social skills (Konold & Shukla, 2014). Across these studies, method effects have been found to have pronounced influences on the measurement of these constructs that are likely to persist over time (Grimm, Pianta, & Konold, 2009; Rajmil, López, López-Aquilà, & Alonso, 2013; Van der Ende, Verhulst, & Tiemeier, 2012).…”

“…All item stems for assessing the three constructs of focus were common to both informant surveys, with only one exception as shown in Appendix A. Recent multilevel confirmatory factor analyses and structural models of these items and scales revealed good psychometric properties when examined on the basis of student (Konold et al, 2014) and teacher (Huang et al, 2014) responses.…”

“…We investigated the influence of informant-based method effects on item-level ratings of the three school climate constructs of teacher support for students, prevalence of teasing and bullying, and student engagement that were previously shown to demonstrate evidence of good construct and concurrent validity through multilevel factor analytic and structural models when examined separately for ratings obtained by students (Konold et al, 2014) and teachers (Huang et al, 2014). The multitrait-multimethod design crossed two structurally different informant types (i.e., students and teachers) with 15 school climate items, where multiple interchangeable student and teacher ratings were obtained within each school.…”

Internalizing Behaviors and Hyperactivity/Inattention: Consequences for Young Struggling Readers, and Especially Boys

“…Although we included IEP status as a dichotomous covariate, our analysis may have benefited from specific information about the nature of the special education services that students received. Second, although researchers have consistently found teachers’ perceptions of child performance within the classroom to be related to academic outcomes (Konold & Shukla, 2014), teachers’ reports of child behavior problems may be susceptible to biases (Dinnebeil et al, 2013). As suggested by Dinnebeil and colleagues, future studies could benefit from including multiple perspectives of children’s classroom behavior and utilizing strengths-based behavior screening instruments.…”