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April 10, 2006 -- Researchers have generally believed
that teachers are better than parents at evaluating the
behavior of school children, because teachers have a bigger
group of children for comparison. A University of Virginia
study, however, shows that parents are better at assessing
their child’s emotional states, while teachers are
better at rating bad behaviors. The results emphasize the
importance of teachers and parents working together in
the child’s best interest.
Associate professor Timothy Konold, coordinator of research, statistics
and evaluation at U.Va.’s Curry
School of Education, reported his
findings on April 8 at the annual American Educational Research Association
(AERA) meeting in San Francisco.
“Our results indicate that both parent and teacher informants are
important
considerations when assessing a child’s overall behavioral disposition,” Konold
said.
He based his research on ratings given by mothers, fathers and teachers
of a representative sample of 562 first-graders in the national NICHD Study
of Early Child Care. U.Va. is one of 10 sites of the 15-year research project
and is led by Robert Pianta.
A commonly used questionnaire rating 96 behaviors typically reveals different
scores on the same behaviors when mothers, fathers and teachers evaluate
their children, said Konold, who sought to determine which rating was a
better assessment.
“One of the more striking findings is the degree to which parent
ratings
of children’s internalizing [or emotional] behaviors tap into more
of these behaviors than teacher ratings,” he added.
Parents’ scores are better indicators of emotional behaviors, such
as being anxious, sad or lonely, or making physical complaints (real or
imagined).
“Parents do a much better job of assessing internalizing behaviors,
so we
should use their ratings when there’s a discrepancy,” he said.
When it comes to aggressive or other delinquent behaviors, called “externalizing,” teachers
make a better assessment, he said. Examples of those behaviors include
arguing, teasing, threatening, cheating, swearing and lying. These are
behaviors children may have learned from their parents, so the parents
don’t necessarily recognize them as deviant as consistently as teachers
do.
“
The results have important implications for the manner in which we collect
information on child behavior problems that are used to inform instruction
and counseling decisions,” he said.
Konold said researchers have not found these results before because they
didn’t have an approach for disentangling the variations in the different
environments of school and home. He used a complex methodology developed
in the last decade to make it possible for educators to interpret the measurements
more effectively.
Tim Konold can be reached by e-mail at konold@virginia.edu or by phone
at (434) 924-0824.
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