A Preliminary Discriminant and Convergent Validity Study of the Teacher Functional Behavioral Assessment Checklist

Abstract. Discriminant and convergent validity of the Teacher Functional Behavior Assessment Checklist (TFBAC) were examined using 89 first-through third-grade students. Students (n = 14) who received three or more TFBACs during a 6-week period differed from the other students (n = 75) on the scale profiles of the Behavioral Assessment System for Children (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1992, 1998), the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham & Elliott, 1990), the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (Epstein & Sharma, 1998), and a 15-minute classroom behavioral observation, suggesting discriminant validity. Good to excellent agreement was found for teachers' repeated ratings of problem behaviors, suggesting reliable identification of problem behavior. The agreement on problem behavior using teacher ratings and a sequential time-lag analysis was fair. However, agreement between teacher ratings and sequential time-lag analysis was poor for determining the purported function of the problem behaviors. Therefore, there was evidence of convergent validity of problem behaviors, although evidence for the convergent validity of the purported maintaining function of these behaviors was lacking. Results are discussed in terms of increasing the convergent validity of the TFBAC, teacher training in concepts about functional behavioral assessment, the possibility of concurrent functions maintaining problem behaviors, and the use of sequential time-lag analysis with a paper-and-pencil classroom observation methodology. ********** Cone (1997) described functional behavioral assessment (EBA) as activities involved in formulating hypotheses about controlling variables that maintain a behavior, whereas functional behavioral analysis refers to the experimental manipulation of the variables to demonstrate a causal relationship between the controlling variable and the problem behavior. Therefore, FBA activities are designed to lead to functional behavioral analysis treatment outcomes. There is empirical support for the use of FBA with persons with severe and profound intellectual disabilities in clinical settings (Blakeslee, Sugai, & Gruba, 1994; Derby et al., 1992; Gresham, Quinn, & Restori, 1999; Iwata et al., 1994). However, the validity of EBA with students of average intellectual ability in public education settings has not been widely established (Fox, Conroy, & Heckaman, 1998; Gable, 1996, 1999; Gresham et al., 1999; Nelson, Roberts, Mathur, & Rutherford, 1999; Scott & Nelson, 1999; Stage, 2000). Research on the validity of FBA is necessary to inform the field so that appropriate procedures and methods can be used with students of average intellectual ability in public education settings (Gable, 1996, 1999; Gresham et al., 1999; Stage, 2000). Psychologists are required to provide valid assessments in keeping with the standards set forth by the American Psychological Association (1992) and the National Association of School Psychologists (2000). Establishing valid FBA procedures protects consumers (i.e., parents, students, educators, and school psychologists) by providing procedures that have treatment utility (Hayes, Nelson, & Jarrett, 1987). FBA procedures should lead to interventions that specifically address the problem behavior by identifying the precipitating events and the consequences that maintain it, whereas traditional assessment typically relies on norm-referenced assessment instruments with the primary purpose of classification rather than intervention (Gresham & Noell, 1998). FBA activities are designed to establish the environmental variables that influence the behavior by the assessment of setting events, antecedents, and consequences that reliably predict the occurrence and maintenance of the behavior (Bijou, Peterson, & Ault, 1968). Setting events are factors that precede the behavior in time but have a strong influence on the occurrence of the behavior (Wahler & Fox, 1981). …