Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale–2 Parent Report: Exploring a Spanish Version With At-Risk Students

Youth strengths are as important to consider as deficits in understanding developmental outcomes and thus are an important component of psychoeducational assessment. Latino/as are understudied with regard to strength-based constructs, although cultural and socioeconomic factors may be related to differences in Latino/a parents’ views of their children’s strengths and school experiences. The Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale–2 (BERS-2) Parent Report is one of the most widely used measures to examine school-based strengths of students. With two sets of data collected with Spanish-speaking Latino/a parents of students aged 9 to 14 years, the authors examined the BERS-2 to explore and then preliminarily confirm latent constructs present in reports of their children’s strengths. A three-factor model, labeled Self-Control, School Participation, and Emotional Health, emerged as an alternative fit to the data. Results indicate that the BERS-2 measures culturally sensitive constructs, yet amended procedures may enhance the assessment of student strengths from the parent perspective, particularly when working with Spanish-speaking Latino/a families. & The ability to identify strengths is a crucial component of psychoeducational assessment. Longitudinal research has found that youth strengths are as important to consider as their deficits for understanding developmental trajectories (Garmezy, 1993). Strengths help students and their families avoid negative outcomes and achieve healthy development. Moreover, understanding strengths allows for more accurate and effective intervention and treatment plans (Jimerson, Sharkey, Nyborg, & Furlong, 2004). Thus, strength-based assessment has the potential to identify important individual and environmental factors to consider when understanding students’ treatment needs and may also promote intervention success through relationship building. In response to the now well-established link between strengths and outcome, psychologists have begun to incorporate a strengths approach with the traditional deficit-focused model to promote understanding the internal and external factors that influence a child’s abilities and disabilities. With strength-based assessment in its infancy, it is unknown whether strength-based concepts apply with diverse populations. Precedent in deficit-based assessment indicates the multicultural robustness of assessments such as the Achenbach scales (Rescorla et al., 2007). Achenbach and colleagues (2008) have studied the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment across more than 70 cultures and found somewhat different relevance of constructs among groups but relatively consistent findings across cultures. They also found that scores varied more within than between groups. In a summary of their findings, the researchers concluded that understanding the differential functioning of various assessments within and across cultural groups is important (a) to diversify normative data, (b) to compare recent immigrants to nonimmigrant functioning from the same country of origin, and (c) to further enhance the accuracy of diagnostic criteria for mental disorders. Validated through multicultural norming, strength-based assessment has the potential to inform more accurate diagnosis and treatment of multicultural youth with behavioral disorders. Although very little multicultural research has been applied to strength-based assessment, there is debate among scholars regarding the consistency of positive psychology traits across cultures. Peterson and Seligman (2004) have conducted the most extensive multicultural research in positive psychology to date. They examined character strengths across numerous cultural groups and found 24 individual virtues present in all cultures, which led them to conclude that positive traits transcend culture. Yet other scholars argue that a cultural context Behavioral Disorders, 35 (1), 53–65 November 2009 / 53 is always required to understand the role of strengths for diverse people, and the same strengths are not equally relevant across cultures (Snyder & Lopez, 2007). A reasonable hypothesis is that a variety of virtues or positive traits are likely to be strengths across cultures, but the relative value or use of these traits in diverse cultures and their relation to success may vary within and between cultures (Pedrotti & Edwards, 2010). The only way to understand the influence of various positive traits across cultures is to measure them with instruments that have multicultural validity. The Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale–Second Edition The Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale–Second Edition (BERS-2) Parent Rating Scale (PRS) is one of the most widely used measures to examine school-based strengths of students (Furlong, Sharkey, Boman, & Caldwell, 2007). The BERS-2 was developed for the Children’s Mental Health Services System of Care Project (Center for Mental Health Services, 2001), which involves wraparound services for children with emotional and behavioral disorders, and was subsequently implemented for the national evaluation of the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Families Program (Center for Mental Health Services, 2001). The BERS-2 assesses multiple types of strengths (e.g., social skills, emotional control) in different domains (i.e., school and family), and its factor structure has been validated for typical as well as at-risk students. The measure has been used most frequently to assess the strengths of students with significant emotional and behavioral concerns. Epstein and Sharma (1998) created the original BERS using empirical procedures along with professional judgment. According to the test manual, they created a list of 1200 items based on literature in areas of developmental psychology, resilience, protective factors, and strength-based assessment. After consultation with experts and preliminary analyses, authors winnowed items down to ones that distinguished between children with and without emotional disturbance. Exploratory factor analysis completed scale development with 52 items in five domains (i.e., Interpersonal Strength, Family Involvement, Intrapersonal Strength, School Functioning, and Affective Strength). The original BERS was designed to be completed by any adult (e.g., parent, teacher, school psychologist) with knowledge about a student. After development procedures were completed, the BERS was published and implemented in numerous projects across the country to help develop treatment plans based on strengths. In the BERS-2 revision, Epstein (2004) made subtle changes to the original BERS to create teacher, parent, and self-report versions. For the parent report, the original 52-item BERS was maintained, and five career strength items were added. The test manual does not mention if alternative trial items were tested, and it appears that the original 52 items were retained for separate parent, teacher, and child versions without scrutiny. That the same items would load on the same five factors for parents, teachers, and youths is unlikely given developmental and cognitive differences among groups (Furlong et al., 2007). Nonetheless, new normative samples were collected with 927 parents of students from 34 states with 14% of Hispanic ethnic background, which was nationally representative in comparison with national census data. The BERS-2 was subsequently published and implemented nationwide. Although the BERS-2 is a widespread measure that includes research-based items and some psychometric examination, reviewers of the original BERS have raised concerns that have yet to be addressed (Furlong et al., 2007). For example, Doll (2001) noted that the underlying factor analysis needs to be verified and a conceptual model should be offered. However, to validate the parent and youth versions, authors (Buckley, Ryser, Reid, & Epstein, 2006) conducted a confirmatory factor analysis with the five-factor BERS-2 and tested only the original five-factor solution. They concluded that the scale was an acceptable fit with samples of parents and youths despite unacceptable root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) values of .148 (parent) and .120 (youth). Thus, the original five-factor structure of the BERS-2, parent version, was not substantiated, rendering its use for clinical, research, and evaluation purposes questionable. The authors appeared to base their conclusion of a replicated factor structure on levels of alternative measurement indices (i.e., comparative fit index [CFI], Tucker-Lewis Index [TLI], Bentler-Bonett normed fit index [NFI]); however, the RMSEA was the only index reported that takes into consideration sample 54 / November 2009 Behavioral Disorders, 35 (1), 53–65 size and model complexity. Given that to date, no independent assessment of reliability and validity has been undertaken with the BERS-2 parent report, studies need to further explore the factor structure of the BERS-2 with various parent groups that represent diverse populations. Rigorous psychometric evaluation by external evaluators is important to promoting the most efficient, reliable, and valid measures for assessing and monitoring student strengths. In the case of the BERS-2, the corpus of information needed to validate its use with parents, as described in the test manual, is still developing. The Importance of Understanding the Latino/a Parent Perspective Latino/as’ origins are rooted in South and Central American countries including Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, and Costa Rica (Miville, 2010). Although they are the largest and most rapidly growing ethnic minority group in the United States, Latino/as are understudied with regard to psychological processes in general and strengthbased constructs in particular, which has led to the perception of cultural exceptions as weaknesses rather than potential strengths (Pedrotti & Edwards, 2010). Given their population growth (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001), overrepresentation in familieswith incomes below the poverty level (Smokowski, Reynolds, & Bezruczko, 1999), higher frequency in families at risk for poor behavioral andmental health outcomes (Vega et al., 1998), and relatively high risk for school dropout and academic failure (Tinkler, 2002), it is important to understand the perspectives of Latino/a parents about their children’s strengths. Although Latino/as are not a homogenous group, there are general characteristics that differentiate the Latino/a identity from European Americans values, particularly for recent immigrants who are more likely to be less acculturated to majority group values. Latino/a parents distinguish themselves from parents of other backgrounds by expressing concern about showing respect to authority figures, and they may not become involved in educational matters for fear of showing disrespect to teachers (Drummond & Stipek, 2004). Latino/a parents may often feel intimidated by teachers and the school system in general (Chrispeels & Rivero, 2001) and may feel anxious, unwelcome, and misinformed when entering the school environment. Latino/a parents often see a sharp delineation between the role of the school and their role as parents: The role of parents is to provide nurturance and to teach morals, respect, and good behavior, whereas the role of the school is to instill knowledge in students (Tinkler, 2002). There is clearly a need for educators to develop a stronger understanding of the cultural values that children bring with them from their home environment to school (Tinkler, 2002) and the implications of those cultural differences on parental understanding of their children’s educational experience.