The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the parent-report Short Form Positive Family Support Strengths and Needs Assessment (PFS-SaNA). The PFS-SaNA is designed to reduce the time and burden of collaborative mental health screening. Parents of 245 students in the Northwest completed the screener at third, fourth,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the parent-report short form of the Positive Family Support Strengths and Needs Assessment (PFS-SaNA). The PFS-SaNA is designed to reduce the time and burden of collaborative mental health screening. Parents of 245 students in the U.S. Northwest completed the screener at…

School-based universal well-being screening is proposed within the Multi-tiered Systems of Support approach to collect data on school and individual well-being. Universal screening allows for data-based informed decision, allocating each pupil or set of pupils in universal, selective and/or indicated structured interventions and supports. However,…

This brief report presents an analog test of the relative classification validity of three cutoff values (CVs; 16, 18, and 20) derived from responses to the self-report version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: Total Difficulties Scale. Results from Bayesian t-tests, using several school-specific subjective well-being indicators as…

While curriculum-based measurement (CBM) tools for screening decisions in reading, mathematics, and written language have been well examined, tools for use in content areas (e.g., science and social studies) remain in the beginning stages of research. In this study, two alternate forms of a new CBM tool (Statement Verification for Science; SV-S),…

This replication study examined the alternate form reliability, criterion validity, and predictive utility of two curriculum-based measurement (CBM) tools in science, Vocabulary-Matching (VM) and Statement Verification for Science (SV-S), for the purpose of screening. In all, 205 seventh-grade students from four middle schools were given alternate…

Although there are several comprehensive measures of children's anxiety symptoms, many have limited utility for screening within school settings. As such, the primary purpose of this dissertation was to develop a brief self-report anxiety measure appropriate for use with students in Grades 3-8. An initial pool of 50 items was developed based on…

Universal screening serves to identify students at risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties while their behavior is still amenable to treatment. However, there are few universal screeners available for middle school students who may be at heightened risk for developing emotional and behavioral difficulties due to major academic and social…

Behavioral and emotional problems among children and adolescents can lead to numerous negative outcomes without intervention. From a prevention standpoint, screening for behavioral and emotional risk is an important step toward identifying such problems before the point of diagnosis or referral. The present study conducted a k-means cluster…

The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability of the eight-item Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA)-mini and its validity in relation to the 72-item version DESSA. The sample included teacher ratings for 1,234 children in kindergarten through eighth grade who comprised the standardization sample. The median alpha reliability…

We reported findings of an exploratory validation study of a revised universal screening instrument: the Student Risk Screening Scale--Internalizing and Externalizing (SRSS-IE) for use with middle school students. Tested initially for use with elementary-age students, the SRSS-IE was adapted to include seven additional items reflecting…

The purpose of the present studies was to provide the means to create brief versions of instruments that can aid the diagnosis and classification of students with learning disabilities and comorbid disorders (e.g., attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder). A sample of 1,108 students with and without a diagnosis of learning disabilities took part…

Florida requires that students who do not meet grade-level reading proficiency standards on the end-of-year state assessment (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, FCAT) receive intensive reading intervention. With the stakes so high, teachers and principals are interested in using screening or diagnostic assessments to identify students with a…

In this technical report, we document the results of a cross-validation study designed to identify optimal cut-scores for the use of the easyCBM[R] mathematics test in the state of Washington. A large sample, randomly split into two groups of roughly equal size, was used for this study. Students' performance classification on the Washington state…

This dissertation is comprised of three manuscripts and presents a line of research aimed at improving the measurement of bullying in schools. The first manuscript investigated the impact of an educational video on self-reports of bullying. A sample of 1,283 middle school students in randomly assigned classrooms either watched or did not watch an…