Teacher Rating of Student Adjustment
Abstract: The Teacher Rating of Student Adjustment is a 7-item instrument developed by the Fast Track Project to assess dimensions of success in adjusting to middle and high school. The first item queries how well the teacher knows the child; the remaining items target the teacher's perceptions of a student's academic performance, academic motivation, social skills, adult relationships, conduct, and personal maturity. Responses are coded on a five-point scale ranging from 1 to 5, as follows: Poor, unsatisfactory skills (1); Below average skills (2); Average skills (3); Above average skills (4); and Excellent skills (5). The data from this measure are distinctive in that multiple teacher ratings of the target behaviors were obtained for each student in grades 6, 7, and 8. The goal was to administer the instrument to teachers in each of the student's core classes, as most middle school students move among several classrooms for core academic subjects. The decision to use multiple informants raises methodological issues that impact scaling and analysis of these data. The level of inter-rater agreement varies considerably across behavioral domains, with low values of the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient for the "social skills" and "relationships with adults" items. The behavioral characteristics targeted with these items are likely to be the most subject to influence by the particular classroom environment. Researchers should keep in mind that the scores for these domains include considerable variation across teacher ratings for each student, a potentially important source of measurement error in analyses using these data. When using the aggregate scores, analysts should note that the number of teachers providing ratings varies across students. In models predicting the TRSA domains, Muschkin and Malone (2003) found that, as expected, the lowest residual variance estimates correspond to the sample of students who received three or more teacher ratings. To the extent that the variation in the number of teachers rating each student is systematic, this could introduce heterogeneity of error variance (heteroscedasticity) in analyses using these data, violating an assumption of many common analytic techniques. An alternative approach is to use a single teacher's rating for each student. This sacrifices the increased precision from the multiple teacher ratings, but avoids the heteroscedasticity problem. Muschkin and Malone found no differences between using reports from a randomly selected teacher and from selection based on the item assessing how well the teacher knows the child; the former is recommended when heteroscedasticity is a concern.
Who Completed this Measure?: Teacher
Cohort 1 - Administrative History
- Year 07 | grade 6 | age 12
- Year 08 | grade 7 | age 13
- Year 09 | grade 8 | age 14
- Year 10 | grade 9 | age 15
- Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
- Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17
Cohort 2 - Administrative History
- Year 07 | grade 6 | age 12
- Year 08 | grade 7 | age 13
- Year 09 | grade 8 | age 14
- Year 10 | grade 9 | age 15
- Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
- Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17
Cohort 3 - Administrative History
- Year 07 | grade 6 | age 12
- Year 08 | grade 7 | age 13
- Year 09 | grade 8 | age 14
- Year 10 | grade 9 | age 15
- Year 11 | grade 10 | age 16
- Year 12 | grade 11 | age 17
Technical Reports:
Raw Dataset Name: TyK
Scored Dataset Name: TSAySTc
Keywords:
Academic Performance, Behavior problems, School Adjustment, Social Skills, Teacher Child Relationships
Is this Measure Available for Public Use?: Yes
Obtain Measure:
Download the measure here
SAS Code for Scale Creation:
Download the code here
Measure Items and Scales:
| COHORT | Cohort |
| SITECODE | Actual Site Code Number on Form |
| TCID | Child ID Number |
| YEAR | Year of participation in study |
| SCHID | School ID |
| TEACHID | Teacher ID |
| INTID | Interviewer ID |
| TCHLANG | Teacher content area - Language Arts |
| TCHMATH | Teacher content area - Math |
| TCHSCI | Teacher content area - Science |
| TCHSOC | Teacher content area - Social Studies |
| EDSTAT | Childs educational status |
| SCHTYPE | Type of school |
| SITE | Site Name |
| KNOWCH | How well do you know child? |
| T7K1 | Academic performance |
| T7K2 | Academic motivation |
| T7K3 | Social skills |
| T7K4 | Relationships with adults |
| T7K5 | Conduct |
| T7K6 | Personal maturity |
| TSA7STAP | TSA student academic performance yr 7 |
| TSA7STAM | TSA student academic motivation yr 7 |
| TSA7STSS | TSA student social skills yr 7 |
| TSA7STAR | TSA student-adult relationships yr 7 |
| TSA7STC | TSA student conduct yr 7 |
| TSA7STPM | TSA student personal maturity yr 7 |