The Disruptive Behavior Scale: an objective assessment of unmanageable social behavior in adolescents

Abstract

The Disruptive Behavior Scale, a 26-item behavioral checklist, provides an objective measure of socially unacceptable public secondary school behavior and may prove to be of value in determining public school exit and reentry plans for disruptive adolescents. The checklist may be completed in 15-25 minutes and does not require direct administration. Test-retest reliability scores were significant (p less than .05) for all items; item-whole test scores were significant for all but 2 items. Both initial and replication validity studies that involved comparisons between public school students and adolescents expelled from public schools yielded significant differences (p less than .05) in the expected direction.