Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Informants tend to provide discrepant reports of child behaviors. The present study evaluated parent and teacher ratings on two types of behavior rating scales in a clinical sample of children referred for an ADHD evaluation in order to assess agreement between informants. Additionally, the study considered the influence of parenting behavior on informant agreement. Specifically, it was predicted that higher levels of negative parental discipline behaviors would predict greater parent-teacher discrepancies on both a measure of executive functioning and a broadband behavior rating scale. Parent and teacher ratings were collected on 116 children. Although the extent of differences between parent-teacher ratings on a broadband behavior rating scale compared to a domain-specific measure were non-significant, the direction of discrepancy differed between the two measures. Parents tended to rate child behavior more severely on a broadband measure whereas teachers tended to rate child behavior more severely on a domain-specific measure. Although parental stress and socioeconomic status were significant predictors of parent-teacher discrepancies, parental discipline behaviors were non-significant predictors. Results of this study provide support to the notion of variability in child behavior in different settings based upon the unique demands of that setting.

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