Table of Contents
Elliott, S. N., and Treuting, M. V. B. (1991). The Behavior Intervention Rating Scale: Development and validation of a pretreatment acceptability and effectiveness measure. Journal of School Psychology 29:43–51.
Comments:
The 24-item Behavior Intervention Rating Scale (BIRS) assesses teachers’ perceptions of treatment acceptability and effectiveness. Nine new statements that measure treatment effectiveness were added to the 15-item Intervention Rating Scale (IRS) (Martens et al., 1985) to create this scale. The IRS measures treatment acceptability and has a reliability coefficient of 0.98.
Sample:
The original sample consisted of 216 teachers who were enrolled in graduate courses at two universities in Louisiana. Over 80 percent were regular education teachers, while the others were special education teachers. All the teachers were volunteers.
Reliability:
The alpha coefficients were 0.97 (acceptability), 0.92 (effectiveness), and 0.87 (time). The total scale alpha was 0.97.
Validity:
Content validity was established through operationalizing the constructs of treatment acceptability and treatment effectiveness. Construct validity was established through factor analytic procedures. Concurrent validity was established through correlational comparisons between the Semantic Differential (Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum, 1957) and the BIRS.
Factor Analysis:
Three factors were extracted with an oblique rotation. The three factors accounted for 73.6 percent of the total variance. Only items with loadings greater than 0.50 were retained on the factor. In addition, factor loadings had to be 0.30 or less on the other two factors to be retained. The three factors are: acceptability (all 15 statements from the IRP), effectiveness (seven of the new statements), and time (the remaining two new statements). Factor matrices are presented.
References
Clark, L., and Elliott, S. N. (1988). The influence of treatment strength information on knowledgeable teachers’ evaluation of two social skills training methods. Professional School Psychology 3:241–51.
Martens, et al. (1985). Teacher judgments concerning the acceptability of school-based interventions. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 16:191–98.
Sheridan, S. M., Kratochwill, T. R., and Elliott, S. N. (1990). Behavioral consultation with parents and teachers: Delivering treatment for socially withdrawn children at home and school. School Psychology Review 19:33–52.
Witt, J. C., Elliott, S. N., and Martens, B. K. (1984). Acceptability of behavioral interventions used in classrooms: The influences of amount of time, severity of behavior problems, and types of intervention. Behavioral Disorders 9:95–104.
Behavior Intervention Rating Scale
1. This would be an acceptable intervention for the child’s problem behavior.
2. Most teachers would find this intervention appropriate for behavior problems in addition to the one described.
3. The intervention should prove effective in changing the child’s problem behavior.
4. I would suggest the use of this intervention to other teachers.
5. The child’s behavior problem is severe enough to warrant use of this intervention.
6. Most teachers would find this intervention suitable for the behavior problem described.
7. I would be willing to use this in the classroom setting.
8. The intervention would not result in negative side effects for the child.
9. The intervention would be appropriate intervention for a variety of children.
10. The intervention is consistent with those I have used in classroom settings.
11. The intervention was a fair way to handle the child’s problem behavior.
12. The intervention is reasonable for the behavior problem described.
13. I like the procedures used in the intervention.
14. This intervention was a good way to handle this child’s behavior problem.
15. Overall, the intervention would be beneficial for the child.
16. The intervention would quickly improve the child’s behavior.
17. The intervention would produce a lasting improvement in the child’s behavior.
18. The intervention would improve the child’s behavior to the point that it would not noticeably deviate from other classmates’ behavior.
19. Soon after using the intervention, the teacher would notice a positive change in the problem behavior.
20. The child’s behavior will remain at an improved level even after the intervention is discontinued.
21. Using the intervention should not only improve the child’s behavior in the classroom, but also in other settings (e.g., other classrooms, home).
22. When comparing this child with a well-behaved peer before and after use of the intervention, the child’s and the peer’s behavior would be more alike after using the intervention.
23. The intervention should produce enough improvement in the child’s behavior so the behavior no longer is a problem in the classroom.
24. Other behaviors related to the problem behavior also are likely to be improved by the intervention.
Scoring:
Strongly Disagree = 1; Disagree = 2; Slightly Disagree = 3; Slightly Agree = 4; Agree = 5; Strongly Agree = 6.