Examining Behavioral Ratings Between Preschool Lead and Assistant Teachers Using Dyadic Multigroup Invariance

When providing behavioral ratings of young children, classrooms with both a lead teacher and assistant teacher have the requisite knowledge about children’s social-emotional/behavioral status, as both teachers are involved in daily activities. A dyadic multigroup invariance test was conducted to examine concordance across teacher groups while accounting for interdependency within the data. Universal screening was conducted with the Behavioral and Emotional Screening System, Teacher Form-Preschool, for a sample of 255 teacher-assistant pairs. Ratings across the groups were largely consistent across the three domains measured by the BESS Teacher Form-Preschool, with ratings of over 80% concordance. Dyadic multigroup invariance held through scalar invariance, showing that the two groups interpreted the scale similarly. Latent mean testing showed equivalency for Externalizing Risk and Internalizing Risk; however, assistant teachers rated preschool children as being at a lower risk level for Adaptive Skills problems relative to lead teacher ratings. Use of assistant and lead teacher ratings is largely equivalent for rating social-emotional behavioral risk, with lead teachers flagging slightly more students as at-risk. Thus, slightly higher numbers of preschoolers may be subjected to Tier 2 MTSS-B intervention if lead teacher ratings are used.