Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Executive functions, effortful control, and social skills as predictors of externalizing behaviors in kindergarten children: A within-informant approach(2020) Albrecht, Jessica; Teglasi, Hedwig; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The relations of executive functions (EF), effortful control (EC), social skills, and externalizing behaviors were examined based on performance measures and rating scales collected from parents and teachers of kindergarten students. Externalizing problems encompass the most prevalent mental health disorders for children at the kindergarten age. Prior research has found that children who exhibit difficulties with self-regulation (EF, EC) or who lack social skills are more likely to develop externalizing problems in early childhood and beyond. However, these constructs have largely been studied separately, and no studies to date have measured EF, EC, and social skills in relation to children’s externalizing behaviors across different methods of measurement and across parent and teacher informants. The current study contributed to the literature on externalizing behaviors in young children by testing the unique contributions of EF, EC, and social skills to externalizing behaviors for parents and teachers separately. Results indicated that there was low agreement between parents and teachers, but that agreement was higher for children rated in the top 15% of externalizing problems. There were both similarities and differences in the relations of constructs for home and school settings. Greater informant-reported global EF deficits, low ratings of global social skills, and low effortful control were predictive of more externalizing behaviors across parent and teacher informants. However, differences were observed at the subscale level for the specific EF deficits and social skills that predicted parent-reported versus teacher-reported externalizing problems. Additionally, many performance measures of EF, including the NEPSY-II scales and the TAT, significantly predicted teacher-reported externalizing behaviors, but not parent-reported externalizing behaviors. Overall, relations are moderate to high between constructs when both are assessed with the same informant and method of measurement. Implications of these findings for both practitioners and researchers are discussed.Item Informant Discrepancies: Understanding Differences in Parent and Teacher Ratings of Children's Executive Functions and Social Skills(2015) Albrecht, Jessica; Teglasi, Hedy; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Researchers and practitioners in the field of psychology frequently use parent and teacher rating scales in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of young children. However, research has shown that agreement between parents and teachers on rating scales is low to moderate. The present study examined this phenomenon, termed "informant discrepancy", for the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions (BRIEF) and the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS). Parents and teachers completed these scales for the same sample of 73 Kindergarten children. Results indicated that parent-teacher agreement was low at the scale and item levels, within-informant correlations were higher than between-informant correlations, mean differences in parent and teacher ratings may be explained by differences in the home and school contexts, and informants identified different children as having significant problems with executive functions and social skills. Implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed.