Evaluation of the Technical Quality of ASEBA, BASC-3, and BRIEF

U05a1 Evaluation of the Technical Quality of Three Tests
Learner’s Name
Psy7610, Section __
(Quarter, Year)
Capella University
Dr. ______________
Introduction
The category of focus is behavioral psychology. Specifically, the chosen measures were intended to understand the behaviors and emotions of children with developmental disorders such as anxiety disorders and learning disorders among others. The standardized tests that were identified as of utility in the project were the Achenbach Systems of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA), Behavior Assessment Systems for Children (BASC-3), and Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF). ASEBA is a behavioral measure that assesses diverse emotional, thought, strengths, competencies, social, and adaptive functioning difficulties based on data collected from multiple informants, and thus provides a researcher with data on the maladaptive and adaptive functioning of a given test subject. The BASC-3 has five scales that allow one to collect the data required to understand the behaviors and emotions of children aged 5-25 years from the perspectives of the test subject, the caregiver, and the teacher. The BRIEF test measures the cognitive abilities that are crucial to thought, action, and emotional control in children by collecting data about the test subject within their natural environments such as schools or homes.
The anticipated population for which the three chosen tests will be used is early and middle childhood, which covers children who are aged between 0-12 years. Early and middle childhood is a crucial developmental period in which children's behavior patterns and coping mechanisms are established. These behaviors and coping mechanisms can have a lasting impact on a child's well-being and future success. Early identification and intervention can prevent the behaviors from becoming ingrained and more difficult to change later. Additionally, addressing problem behaviors in early and middle childhood can help to improve a child's social and emotional development, academic performance, and overall mental health.
Notably, all three chosen tests can be effectively used to measure the behavioral and emotional problems among children with developmental disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder (CD). Achenbach and Rescoria (2014) observe that years of practical experience have yielded evidence supporting the utility of the measure in reporting the maladaptive and adaptive functioning of learners in middle childhood. Roth et al. (2014) note that BRIEF can be used to assess behaviors in learners with various medical, developmental, neurological, and developmental disorders including learning disorders among others. Zhou et al. (2021) note that BASC-3 is an effective tool for diagnosing learning and developmental disorder in childhood as it is used in multiple settings. To this end, the following paper will present six studies that establish the reliability and validity of the three standardized tests in the measurement of behavioral and emotional problems in early and middle childhood.
Technical Review Article Summaries
Rescorla, L. A. (2005). Assessment of young children using the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA). Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 11(3), 226-237. The study focuses on examining the reliability of ASEBA as used to assess behavioral problems in preschoolers. To this end, the study seeks to determine the extent to which the tools can be considered reliable for the assessment of behavioral problems in early childhood in varying contexts. The focus of the study was to establish reliability for the tests used to collect data on child behavior. The test-retest reliability of ASEBA is examined in the study using maternal ratings provided by mothers of 68 children who had not been referred to psychologists. From the analysis of the collected data, the researchers found that the reported test-retest correlations figures were in the region of 0.80s and 0.90s, with a mean r of 0.85 reported for the ASEBA tools that observe the behaviors of children aged 1.5-5 years, and a mean r of 0.81 reported for the tool used by caregivers and parent to provide data on children behaviors.
Willoughby, M. T., Waschbusch, D. A., Moore, G. A., & Propper, C. B. (2011). Using the ASEBA to screen for callous unemotional traits in early childhood: Factor structure, temporal stability, and utility. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 33, 19-30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-010-9195-4. The study investigated the validity of ASEBA in distinguishing the problem behavior attributable to ADHD from one attributable to ODD. To this end, the researchers used data collected in the Durham Child Health and Development Study and analyzed it using the confirmatory factor analysis to determine the validity of the ASEBA measure. The researchers found that the ASEBA measure was significantly valid in the sense that the multiple measures of the infant temperaments using the tool could be used to predict the associated disorder in the child with 84 percent accuracy.
Ezpeleta, L., Granero, R., Penelo, E., de la Osa, N., & Domиnech, J. M. (2015). Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning–Preschool (BRIEF-P) applied to teachers: Psychometric properties and usefulness for disruptive disorders in 3-year-old preschoolers. Journal of Attention Disorders, 19(6), 476-488. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054712466439. The study focuses on measuring the extent to which BRIEF can be a valid measure for use in assessing disruptive behaviors in preschoolers. To this end, the tools were used to collect data from teachers of 623 children, and validity was established using the comparative factor analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is a statistical technique that is used to establish the validity of a measure by testing its factor structure against a specified model. CFA is used to evaluate the extent to which the items of a measure are related to a set of underlying factors that are believed to represent the construct being measured. The study showed that the measure had satisfactory levels of internal consistency and could be reliably used to discriminate against children with ADHD. A Cronbach alpha greater than 0.87 was re...