This study describes a method for using teacher nominations and ratings to identify socially influential, aggressive middle school students for participation in a targeted violence prevention intervention. The teacher nomination method is compared with peer nominations of aggression and influence to obtain validity evidence. Participants were urban, predominantly African American and Latino sixth-grade students who were involved in a pilot study for a large multi-site violence prevention project. Convergent validity was suggested by the high correlation of teacher ratings of peer influence and peer nominations of social influence. The teacher ratings of influence demonstrated acceptable sensitivity and specificity when predicting peer nominations of influence among the most aggressive children. Results are discussed in terms of the application of teacher nominations and ratings in large trials and full implementation of targeted prevention programs.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was supported by cooperative agreement number #99067 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Multi-Site Violence Prevention Project included Robin Ikeda, MD, Thomas Simon, PhD, Emilie Smith, PhD, and LeRoy Reese, PhD from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; David Rabiner, PhD, Shari Miller-Johnson, PhD, Donna-Marie Winn, Ph.D, Steven Asher, PhD, and Kenneth Dodge, PhD from Duke University; Arthur Horne, PhD, Pamela Orpinas, PhD, William Quinn, PhD, and Carl Huberty, PhD from the University of Georgia; Patrick Tolan, PhD, Deborah Gorman-Smith, PhD, David Henry, PhD, and Franklin Gay, MPH from the University of Illinois at Chicago; and Albert Farrell, PhD, Aleta Meyer, PhD, Terri Sullivan, PhD, Kevin Allison, PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University
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Henry, D.B., Miller-Johnson, S., Simon, T.R. et al. Validity of Teacher Ratings in Selecting Influential Aggressive Adolescents for a Targeted Preventive Intervention. Prev Sci 7, 31–41 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-005-0004-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-005-0004-3