Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2009

Publication Title

Early Childhood Services: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Effectiveness

Volume

3

Issue

1

First Page

51

Last Page

60

Abstract

A number of professional organizations have called on the need for valid and reliable assessments that measure young children’s strengths and competencies for the purpose of making decisions about teaching and learning, identifying areas of lesser strength, and for designing and evaluating interventions. The Preschool Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (PreBERS; Epstein & Synhorst, in press) is a standardized test designed to assess the emotional and behavioral strengths and competencies of children 3 to 5 years of age. Two studies investigated the PreBERS with parents as the primary respondents. The first study investigated the convergent validity of the PreBERS by comparing it to the Caregiver-Teacher Report Form (C-TRF; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000). Because the PreBERS is a measure of emotional strengths and the C-TRF assesses problem behaviors, moderate to very large negative correlations (-.370 to -.775) were reported between the two measures. The second study investigated the test-retest reliability of the PreBERS over a one-month period. All of the correlations were over .787 indicating that the PreBERS is a stable measure across ratings. The results suggest that when parents are the primary respondents, the PreBERS is a valid and reliable measure for assessing emotional and behavioral strengths in preschool children.

Comments

Published in Early Childhood Services: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Effectiveness, 3(1), 51-60.(2009). Copyright © 2009, Plural Publishing. Used by permission.

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