ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THE SAME CHILD? PARENT–TEACHER RATINGS OF PRESCHOOLERS’ SOCIAL–EMOTIONAL BEHAVIORS
This article is based on data from the first author's PhD dissertation, supported by a doctoral grant (SFRH/BD/29141/2006) from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), presented to the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra (Portugal).
Abstract
The parent‐teacher agreement has become an important issue of children's psychological assessment. However, the amount of research available for preschool children is small and mainly based on one index of agreement with samples of modest size/representativeness. This study examined parent‐teacher agreement (correlations) and discrepancies (t tests) on preschoolers' social skills and problem behaviors for the normative Portuguese sample (N = 1,000) of the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales – 2nd Edition (PKBS‐2). Analyses were replicated according to the child's gender and mothers' educational level. Correlational analyses suggest weak to moderate informant agreement (mean correlation = .32). Parents' and teachers' ratings are significantly different for all PKBS‐2 scores, with parents assigning higher scores both on social skills and problem behaviors. Results highlight the importance of both parents' and teachers' perspectives to achieve a more comprehensive picture of preschoolers' social‐emotional behaviors, and reinforce the evidence of reliability of the PKBS‐2 Portuguese version.
