Behavior Intervention Rating Scale

Abstract

The Behavior Intervention Rating Scale (BIRS) is a 24-item psychological instrument developed by Elliott and Treuting in 1991 to assess teachers’ perceptions of behavioral interventions prior to their implementation. It measures two critical pretreatment dimensions: treatment acceptability and treatment effectiveness. The BIRS was created by integrating nine new items focused on effectiveness into the existing 15-item Intervention Rating Scale (IRS). This comprehensive scale provides essential data for school psychologists and consultants regarding the feasibility and perceived utility of proposed interventions, thereby maximizing the likelihood of successful implementation in educational settings.

Keywords

Behavior Intervention Rating Scale, BIRS, treatment acceptability, treatment effectiveness, school psychology, behavioral intervention, teacher perception, psychometrics, pretreatment assessment.

Authors

S. N. Elliott, M. V. B. Treuting

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Behavior Intervention Rating Scale (BIRS) is to quantify the subjective judgments of teachers regarding a proposed behavioral intervention. Specifically, it seeks to measure whether teachers find the intervention procedures reasonable, fair, and appropriate (acceptability), and whether they believe the intervention will produce meaningful, lasting positive change in the child’s behavior (effectiveness).

By assessing these perceptions before an intervention is initiated, the BIRS acts as a crucial predictive measure. High levels of perceived acceptability and effectiveness are strongly correlated with implementation fidelity and positive behavioral outcomes. The scale thus serves as a vital tool in the context of behavioral consultation, ensuring that interventions are well-matched to the practical realities and subjective comfort levels of the implementing educator.

Construct

The BIRS is designed to measure a multi-dimensional construct related to the evaluation of school-based behavioral treatments. Through factor analytic procedures, the scale was shown to measure three distinct, yet related, factors:

• Acceptability: This factor captures the teacher’s subjective evaluation of the intervention procedures, addressing whether they are reasonable, consistent with classroom practices, and appropriate for the severity of the problem behavior. This factor is composed of all 15 statements retained from the original Intervention Rating Scale (IRS).
• Effectiveness: This factor measures the anticipated clinical utility of the intervention, focusing on the expected magnitude, speed, and durability of behavioral improvement, as well as the generalization of positive changes to other settings.
• Time: This factor relates specifically to the efficiency of the intervention—the perceived duration or effort required to achieve positive results.

Validity

The validation study for the BIRS established strong evidence across several types of validity.

Content validity was established by meticulously operationalizing the core constructs of treatment acceptability and treatment effectiveness, ensuring that the 24 items accurately and comprehensively covered the domains of interest as they relate to teacher perceptions in the school environment.

Construct validity was confirmed through robust factor analytic procedures, which verified that the scale items clustered into the theoretically predicted subscales (Acceptability, Effectiveness, and Time). Furthermore, concurrent validity was demonstrated through correlational comparisons between the BIRS and the Semantic Differential (Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum, 1957), indicating that the BIRS measures evaluative judgments consistent with established instruments.

Reliability

The BIRS demonstrates exceptionally high internal consistency, confirming its reliability across both the total scale and its individual subscales. The total scale alpha coefficient was found to be 0.97, indicating excellent reliability for the overall measure of intervention perception.

Reliability estimates for the three extracted factors were also strong, demonstrating that the items within each subscale consistently measure their respective construct:

• Acceptability (15 items): Alpha coefficient of 0.97.
• Effectiveness (7 items): Alpha coefficient of 0.92.
• Time (2 items): Alpha coefficient of 0.87.

These high alpha coefficients suggest that the BIRS is a highly reliable instrument for assessing teacher perceptions regarding behavioral interventions.

Factor Analysis

The structural analysis of the BIRS involved factor analytic procedures designed to identify the underlying dimensions of the scale. Three factors were successfully extracted using an oblique rotation method. These three factors accounted for 73.6 percent of the total variance observed in the scale.

Item retention was based on stringent criteria to ensure factor purity: items were only retained if their loadings were greater than 0.50 on their primary factor, and simultaneously 0.30 or less on the other two factors. The resulting factor structure confirmed the theoretical basis of the scale:

1. Acceptability: Comprised all 15 statements inherited from the Intervention Rating Scale (IRS).
2. Effectiveness: Comprised seven of the nine new statements added by Elliott and Treuting.
3. Time: Comprised the remaining two new statements focused on temporal aspects of the intervention.

Instrument

Test Type: Rating Scale, Psychometric Assessment

Format: 24 self-report items using a 6-point Likert-type scale.

Language Available: English (Original)

Population Group: Teachers (Educators)

Age Group: Adults (Teachers)

Population Details: The original validation sample consisted of 216 volunteer teachers enrolled in graduate courses at two universities in Louisiana. The majority (over 80 percent) were regular education teachers, with the remainder being special education teachers.

Test Methodology: The BIRS assesses pretreatment perceptions of a specific behavioral intervention. Respondents rate their level of agreement with each statement based on the following scoring system: Strongly Disagree = 1; Disagree = 2; Slightly Disagree = 3; Slightly Agree = 4; Agree = 5; Strongly Agree = 6.

Keywords

Psychological assessment, behavioral consultation, school-based intervention, teacher training, alpha coefficients, oblique rotation, factor structure, intervention fidelity.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in source.

Correspondence Address: Not provided in source.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1991

Permissions & Fee: Information regarding current permissions and associated fees is not provided in the original source material. Researchers or practitioners interested in using the scale should contact the original authors or the publisher of the Journal of School Psychology.

Reference’s

Elliott, S. N., and Treuting, M. V. B. (1991). The Behavior Intervention Rating Scale: Development and validation of a pretreatment acceptability and effectiveness measure. Journal of School Psychology 29:43–51.

Clark, L., and Elliott, S. N. (1988). The influence of treatment strength information on knowledgeable teachers’ evaluation of two social skills training methods. Professional School Psychology 3:241–51.

Martens, et al. (1985). Teacher judgments concerning the acceptability of school-based interventions. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 16:191–98.

Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J., and Tannenbaum, P. H. (1957). The Measurement of Meaning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Sheridan, S. M., Kratochwill, T. R., and Elliott, S. N. (1990). Behavioral consultation with parents and teachers: Delivering treatment for socially withdrawn children at home and school. School Psychology Review 19:33–52.

Witt, J. C., Elliott, S. N., and Martens, B. K. (1984). Acceptability of behavioral interventions used in classrooms: The influences of amount of time, severity of behavior problems, and types of intervention. Behavioral Disorders 9:95–104.

Items of the Behavior Intervention Rating Scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. This would be an acceptable intervention for the child’s problem behavior.
2. Most teachers would find this intervention appropriate for behavior problems in addition to the one described.
3. The intervention should prove effective in changing the child’s problem behavior.
4. I would suggest the use of this intervention to other teachers.
5. The child’s behavior problem is severe enough to warrant use of this intervention.
6. Most teachers would find this intervention suitable for the behavior problem described.
7. I would be willing to use this in the classroom setting.
8. The intervention would not result in negative side effects for the child.
9. The intervention would be appropriate intervention for a variety of children.
10. The intervention is consistent with those I have used in classroom settings.
11. The intervention was a fair way to handle the child’s problem behavior.
12. The intervention is reasonable for the behavior problem described.
13. I like the procedures used in the intervention.
14. This intervention was a good way to handle this child’s behavior problem.
15. Overall, the intervention would be beneficial for the child.
16. The intervention would quickly improve the child’s behavior.
17. The intervention would produce a lasting improvement in the child’s behavior.
18. The intervention would improve the child’s behavior to the point that it would not noticeably deviate from other classmates’ behavior.
19. Soon after using the intervention, the teacher would notice a positive change in the problem behavior.
20. The child’s behavior will remain at an improved level even after the intervention is discontinued.
21. Using the intervention should not only improve the child’s behavior in the classroom, but also in other settings (e.g., other classrooms, home).
22. When comparing this child with a well-behaved peer before and after use of the intervention, the child’s and the peer’s behavior would be more alike after using the intervention.
23. The intervention should produce enough improvement in the child’s behavior so the behavior no longer is a problem in the classroom.
24. Other behaviors related to the problem behavior also are likely to be improved by the intervention.