The psychometric characteristics of the preschool behavior questionnaire in preschoolers with developmental handicaps

Abstract

Parents and teachers rated 34 preschoolers with developmental handicaps on the Preschool Behavior Questionnaire (PBQ) (Behar and Stringfield, 1974a); student assistants rated 11 children. Approximately four weeks later, parents and teachers rerated the children. Shortly after the first rating, 14 of the older subjects were assessed by direct observations for classroom behavior and were tested on a Continuous performance Task (CPT) and the Marble Dropping Task (Zigler, 1961). Interrater agreement was generally modest to moderately high for the disruptive subscales of the PBQ (Hostile-Aggressive and Hyperactive-Distractible), whereas agreement was usually unsatisfactory for the Anxious-Fearful subscale. Test-retest reliability was high for ratings by both parents and teachers. Data from the direct observations and from the CPT and Marble Dropping tasks failed to validate the parent ratings, whereas they provided moderate support for the validity of teacher ratings on the disruptive subscales. We concluded that parent ratings on the PBQ do have some utility but that extreme scores derived from parent ratings should be interpreted with caution. Reliability appears to be adequate to good on the disruptive behavior subscales for teacher ratings, and existing relationships with other measures support the validity of the subscales assessing disruptive behavior. The PBQ appears to be useful for assessing preschoolers with developmental handicaps, although our data suggest limitations as well.