Congruence of parents' and teachers' ratings of children's behavior problems

Abstract

This study compared parents' and teachers' perceptions of behavior disorders in 1,008 white children enrolled in kindergarten through eighth grade. Data included background information and ratings on the Behavior Problem Checklist. For the most part, parents perceived more problems in their children than did teachers. Parents and teachers tended to agree that boys exhibited more deviant behavior than girls and that youngsters from the higher social classes had fewer disorders than those from the lower classes. Parent and teacher judgments were somewhat alike in that both groups tended to observe a pattern in the development of problems that first increased then decreased or first increased then decreased and leveled off across grades. Trends were more gradual for parents and sharper for teachers, or declines were not seen by parents that were seen by teachers. Bivariate correlations between parents' and teachers' evaluations were significant by low or low to moderate. Mother-teacher and father-teacher coefficients differed on Socialized Delinquency but were similar on the other behavioral dimensions. Although significant interactions of parent-teacher relationships with sex and grade were infrequent, correlations between ratings by the two groups of informants were higher for boys than for girls; and correlations between parent and teacher judgments were lower for early grades than for later grades.