Beyond Rater Agreement on Students’ Behavior

Abstract: Over the past decades, there has been increasing interest in the multi-informant assessment of students’ behavioral problems. The current study uses the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire ( Goodman, 1997 ) to investigate the consistency and specificity between self-reports, parent reports, and teacher reports of secondary students’ externalizing and internalizing problems ( N = 1,326 students). Findings from a CT-C[M-1] model indicated moderate to low consistency between student reports and teacher or parent reports. As expected, gender and special needs status predicted specificity in other reports of students’ behavior to some extent, particularly for hyperactivity. Overall, the results highlighted the vital role of multi-informant approaches in assessing students’ behavior problems.