Behavioral dimensions in fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students as rated by teachers

The St. Francis Boys' Homes early intervention program for inadequately coping fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students depends upon school teachers' nominations and employs their descriptions of pupil characteristics. In the interest of behavioral science, as well as the potential screening-in, selective placement, predictor purpose, and clinical gain within the tailored treatment program, the teachers completed a 99-item, favorable and unfavorable item description of 852 youths who were participating for 45 days in "Passport for Adventure." This large array of items yielded 14 first-order and four second-order factors, many of which have been found in the extensive literature. These measures of 14 first-order factors obtained through ratings by numerous teachers in 122 school settings demonstrated the wide span of the usual teacher's perception of youths in a formative period of their lives. It included interpersonal and intrapersonal descriptors. Most prior studies entered analysis with a low number of items and therefore could describe only a few simpler dimensions and could name them with less certainty. In addition, the factor analysis was sometimes unrealistically orthogonal and not finally hand rotated for clearest simple structure. This study gives a more comprehensive understanding of what teachers can and do perceive within and among their students, made manifest by a more extensive sampling of behavior.