Date of Award

August 2019

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Advisor(s)

Tanya L. Eckert

Keywords

Classification Accuracy, Classroom Behaviors, Sensitivity, Writing Performance

Subject Categories

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between two school-wide screening measures, one examining classroom behaviors (the Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener; SAEBRS; Kilgus, Chafouleas, & Riley-Tillman, 2013) and another evaluating writing fluency (Curriculum-Based Measurement in Written Expression; CBM-WE). This study also evaluated the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of the SAEBRS and CBM-WE for identifying students at-risk for writing achievement deficits. A convenience sample of 147 third-grade general education students across two schools, who were determined to not have any significant impairment impacting their writing performance, participated in this study. The index tests (i.e., SAEBRS, CBM-WE) and reference standard (i.e., Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, III Essay Composition subtest; Pearson, 2009) were identified a priori. Of 147 participants, 18 students were identified as at-risk for writing achievement deficits and 129 students were identified as not at-risk. Results indicated a statistically significant relationship between the SAEBRS and CBM-WE for female and male students. In the identification of writing achievement deficits, the area under the ROC curve for CBM-WE revealed fair accuracy (AUC = .761; 95% Confidence Interval [.644, .878]) and poor accuracy was noted for the SAEBRS (AUC = .653; 95% Confidence Interval [.528, .778]). Although there was no statistically significant difference between the independent AUC values, the difference in the qualitative indicator suggest that CBM-WE is a superior screening measure for identifying at-risk students in comparison to the SAEBRS. The findings from this study highlight the contribution of classroom behaviors to the writing process of elementary-aged students and offers support for the use of CBM-WE to identify students at-risk for writing achievement deficits.

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Open Access

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