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, , 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