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The SAEBRS was designed to be a brief and contextually relevant screener of student risk for emotional and behavioral problems. The screener is comprised of 19 items, each of which relates to a broad factor (General Behavior) and three narrow factors: Social Behavior (6 items), Academic Behavior (6 items), and Emotional Behavior (7 items). In accordance with the principles of prevention science, each factor corresponds to various risk and protective factors suggested by developmental psychological research to predict the development of emotional/behavioral disorders. A teacher completes the SAEBRS for an individual student with whom the teacher has a history of interactions. Ratings correspond to the frequency with which the teacher has observed various maladaptive and adaptive behaviors in the previous month (Never, Sometimes, Often, Almost Always). It is estimated that it takes approximately 3-5 minutes to complete the measure for each student.
Development
The SAEBRS was developed for use in universal screening for behavioral and emotional risk. The measure falls within a broad class of highly efficient tools, suitable for teacher use in evaluating and rating all students on common behavioral criteria (Severson, Walker, Hope-Doolittle, Kratochwill, & Gresham, 2007). The SAEBRS is grounded within a conceptual model, which states that a student’s success in school is not only related to his or her academic achievement, but also success within multiple behavioral domains. Research suggests the SAEBRS may be used to evaluate student functioning in terms of general behavior, as assessed by broad a Total Behavior scale. Research further suggests the SAEBRS may be used to evaluate student behavior within multiple inter-related narrow domains, as assessed by the Social Behavior, Academic Behavior, and Emotional Behavior sub-scales (Kilgus, Chafouleas, & Riley-Tillman, 2013; Kilgus, Eklund, von der Embse, & Taylor, 2014; Kilgus, Sims, von der Embse, & Riley-Tillman, 2014).
Uses and Applications
SAEBRS data can be used to assess students’ general, social, academic, and emotional behaviors. Data can also be useful in program evaluation and in determining how students may be best supported at Tier 1. For instance, the data can be used to indicate whether a school should invest in the support of teacher classroom management practices, given the prevalence of social behavioral concerns, or in the instruction of academic enabling skills given the noted extent of academic behavioral difficulties.
It is important to note that a student’s score on the SAEBRS and mySAEBRS should never be used as the sole determinant of overall risk or intervention services. Instead, these scores should be examined by a team consisting of the student’s teacher(s), counselor, psychologist, administrative leader, and others who know the student well. SAEBRS and mySAEBRS must be compared with other sources of information about the student’s behaviors in order to confirm the presence of risk and the need for support.
Screening
SAEBRS can be used to identify students who are at risk for general, social, academic, and emotional behaviors at least three times a year. By evaluating in which of the three specific domains a student is at risk, educators may determine what type of support is most appropriate and which problem behaviors should be prioritized through intervention. For instance, if a student is only at risk for emotional problems, then a school may decide to target emotional behaviors via the application of social-emotional learning (SEL) programs.
Target Population
The SAEBRS is designed for universal screening of student risk for social-emotional and behavior problems for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade.
SAEBRS Administration and Scoring Procedures
Examiner Competence. FastBridge is supported by an extensive set of materials to support teachers and students, including self-directed online training courses that allow teachers to become certified to administer each of the FastBridge assessments. General or special education classroom teachers serve as the most appropriate SAEBRS informants. Teachers chosen to complete the SAEBRS should have interacted extensively with each target student during the month immediately preceding SAEBRS completion. Ideally, they have known the student for at least six weeks. A teacher may complete the SAEBRS following an approximately 30-minute training session available via online training modules. Ongoing technical support is available on the website, along with training manuals and materials.
Administration Time. It is estimated that it takes approximately 3-5 minutes to complete the measure for each student.
Administration Options. The administration is completed online. At this time, only one teacher per student can complete the SAEBRS and we do not have the option for multiple raters. Although there is a student version of SAEBRS (mySAEBRS), there is not currently a parent version.
Instructions. Teachers complete a SAEBRS form for each student in their classroom. Therefore, if 15 students are enrolled in a particular teacher’s classroom, the teacher will fill out the SAEBRS 15 times. To complete the SAEBRS, the teacher logs in to the FastBridge system and opens either the Class List page or the Screening page. By selecting the SAEBRS option on the page, a list of students in the class will appear. The teacher then selects the first student and the clock icon to open the SAEBRS form. The teacher indicates how frequently the student has displayed each behavior (as described within each item) during the previous month. The teacher is to ONLY consider the behavior exhibited by the student during the month prior to SAEBRS completion. No other behaviors outside of this time period should be taken into consideration during item completion.
Item Definitions. It is common for teachers to request a definition of the behaviors represented within each SAEBRS item. For instance, many seek additional clarification regarding what should be considered a ‘temper outburst.’ Such information was not provided to the teachers who participated in the research and the results were found to be valid. Therefore, in order to maintain standardized procedures, SAEBRS users are not to be provided with such definitions. Rather, teachers are to use their best judgment in considering what actions are representative of each behavior.
Interpreting SAEBRS Test Results
Interpreting SAEBRS scores involves a basic understanding of the various scores provided in the FastBridge software. Interpretation of SAEBRS results is what helps to guide the identification of at-risk students, as well as instruction and intervention development.
Scores. FastBridge reports a student’s overall performance on each SAEBRS scale as a sum of item scores within each scale. Scores range from 0-18 for Social Behavior, 0-18 for Academic Behavior, 0-21 for Emotional Behavior, and 0-57 for Total Behavior. The Total Behavior score is calculated by summing the Social Behavior, Academic Behavior, and Emotional Behavior sub-scale scores. SAEBRS scores can be classified as not-at-risk and at-risk. Using the ranges in the table below, sub-scale and general scale scores can be dichotomized in terms of risk categories within the domains. SAEBRS risk ranges have been established based on a comparison of the SAEBRS to multiple criterion gold standard behavior rating scales, including the Social Skills Improvement System (Gresham & Elliot, 2008) and the Behavioral and Emotional Screening System BASC-2 (Kamphaus & Reynolds, 2007).
Visit SAEBRS and mySAEBRS Norms and Benchmarks for more information.