Teacher ratings of ADHD symptoms in ethnic minority students: Bias or behavioral difference?

Abstract

Disproportionate placement of African American and Hispanic students into disability and special education categories may result from true behavioral and cognitive differences, bias in assessment and referral, or some combination of the two. Studies of commonly used ADHD rating scales suggest teacher bias may contribute to placement discrepancies. This investigation compared teacher ratings of ADHD symptoms on the Conner's Teacher Rating Scale-Revised Long Version (CTRS-R:L; Conners, 1997) and the ADHD-IV: School Version (DuPaul, Power, Anastopoulous, & Reid, 1998), with objective classroom observations from the Behavioral Observation of Students in Schools code (BOSS;Shapiro, 2003). Participants were first through fourth grade students (N ϭ 172; 120 male) classified as Caucasian (n ϭ 112) or ethnic minority (17 African American, 38 Hispanic, 5 African American and Hispanic). Contrary to hypothesis, results showed teacher ratings of ethnic minority students were more consistent with direct observation data than were ratings of Caucasian students. Findings suggest teacher ratings of ethnic minority students may more accurately reflect true behavioral levels.

Development of a problem-focused behavioral screener linked to evidence-based intervention.

“…It is possible that teacher ratings in the study reflected behavioral expectations for nonminority students in suburban schools, which resulted in biased assessment of minor ity students' behavior. It appears that our results are consistent with those of prior stud ies that indicated elevated ratings for African American students' problem behavior (Ep stein et al, 1998;Reid et al, 2001); however, additional studies are needed to determine whether such differences are because of in formant bias or whether such differences also would be found using more objective assess ment methods (see Hosterman, DuPaul, & Jitendra, 2008). Finally, future research should investigate the feasibility of the ITRF for large-scale universal screening by com paring the time and resources necessary to conduct universal screening across an entire school or district using the ITRF with those necessary to conduct screening using extant measures.…”

Ethnic incongruence and the student–teacher relationship: The perspective of ethnic majority teachers

“…Thus, unlike previous research (e.g., Hosterman et al, 2008), we did not examine ethnic differences in teacher-rated problem behaviors, but we investigated whether teachers reported different relationships for different ethnicities given equally strong perceptions of those behaviors. Finally, we expected that ethnic differences in teacher-reported relationship quality would be most pronounced when teachers were perceived to have weaker versus stronger multicultural attitudes.…”

“…For instance, many studies have included examinations of teachers' expectations toward students from different ethnic groups, and the overall conclusion is that teachers hold lower expectations for African American and Latino/a versus European American students (see for a meta-analysis, Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007). Likewise, there are indications that teachers sometimes provide biased ratings of minority (versus majority) students' behaviors (see Hosterman, DuPaul, & Jitendra, 2008) and also that they make less favorable (i.e. more internal) attributions for the problems experienced by those children (Jackson, 2002).…”

Child and informant influences on behavioral ratings of preschool children

“…In a study comparing Hispanic and non-Hispanic Caucasian teachers’ ratings of both types of children, De Ramirez & Shapiro (2005) found a main effect for teacher ethnicity, such that Hispanic teachers rated children higher, but no effect for child ethnicity, and no interaction. Similarly, Hosterman, Du Paul, and Jitendra (2008) did not find teacher bias against African American or Hispanic students when their ratings were compared to observations. Notably, all but one of these studies (Saft & Pianta, 2001) has been conducted with students in kindergarten or older.…”

“…Moreover, much less is known about agreement between raters in low-income, particularly minority preschool populations, because the preponderance of research within the United States has been conducted with more affluent, and predominantly Caucasian populations (de Ramirez & Shapiro, 2005; McDermott, & Schaefer, 1996). Of two recent exceptions, (e.g., Hosterman et al, 2008; Milfort & Greenfield, 2002), one was conducted with elementary age children and neither included parental ratings. There are significant gaps in the literature about the reliability and validity of ratings of low-income preschool children’s behavior.…”