As part of a comprehensive, multi-tiered system of support for students’ emotional, academic, and behavioral success, effective universal screenings are essential to identify students who may benefit from early intervention and targeted prevention services (Strein, Kuhn-McKearin, & Finney, 2014). Although many screening procedures and methods have been developed and evaluated for general education populations, more research is needed on screening procedures designed for one traditionally underserved population in school-based mental health services—students in accelerated curricula (namely, students in Advanced Placement classes or in the International Baccalaureate program; AP/IB). When teachers are involved in universal screening procedures, regardless of student population served, training strategies to improve teacher accuracy in identifying students at-risk have resulted in gains in teacher knowledge of mental health disorders, but not improvements in accuracy (Deacon, 2015; Moor et al., 2007; Veira et al., 2014). This study examined prevalence of academic and emotional risk among 352 9th grade AP/IB students (enrolled in AP Human Geography or IB Inquiry Skills) in seven schools. Within a subgroup of 245 students (from five schools) who also participated in a teacher nomination procedure, this study also examined the accuracy of teachers (N = 6) in identifying the students who demonstrate signs of risk academically (defined by low grade in class or overall GPA) or emotionally (defined by high levels of perceived stress and low school satisfaction). Almost one in four students (24.17%) were designated as at-risk academically for either low course grades or GPA, and almost one in three students in the sample (28.88%) met at-risk criteria for emotional risk for either low school satisfaction or high perceived stress. In terms of teacher accuracy, teachers were found to have a high sensitivity and specificity identifying students with academic risk (90% sensitivity and 90.32% specificity across all 6 teachers). Mirroring previous research, teacher accuracy identifying students at-risk emotionally was lower (42.42% sensitivity and 76.14% specificity across all 6 teachers). The study also explored patterns in at-risk students missed by teachers, based on student characteristics such as gender, race, socio-economic status, risk severity, and risk type. Due to a low sample size of teachers, analyses were unable to detect differences in the rate of students missed across different student variables. Finally, the study advanced and evaluated the effects of a brief teacher training and feedback intervention intended to increase accuracy in identifying students at-risk. Low sample sizes again precluded identification of meaningful statistical differences. Although statistical findings were limited, quantitative and qualitative acceptability measures indicated high participant acceptability and feasibility for the new intervention. Conclusions from the study may be used within a population-based framework of student mental health services, to best inform early identification methods of students in accelerated curricula at-risk for diminished academic and emotional success, and working with teachers in screening efforts. Further, future research points to continued need to evaluate the brief teacher intervention with larger sample sizes to evaluate any possible intervention effects.

Schools need accurate and efficient ways to identify youth with mental health problems, in part to provide services to such students whose mental health concerns pose barriers to learning. The present study involved an investigation of the accuracy of one method--relying on educators (teachers, a team of school-based mental health professionals, and a school nurse) to identify early adolescents who self-report elevated levels of anxiety or depression. With respect to teachers as screening agents, the possible variability in rates of accurate identification as a function of number of teachers involved in the process (i.e., pooling nominations from multiple subject area teachers for a single student rather than from a single subject area teacher) was examined. The present study also included an examination of the demographic and psychological features of students who are more likely to be missed (i.e., self-report elevated symptoms but are not detected) or misidentified (i.e., self-reported symptoms in the typical range but were incorrectly identified as symptomatic) by educators. Participants included 233 middle school students in grades 7 to 8, 19 teachers, and 6 school-based mental health professionals. Approximately 15.5% and 12% of student participants twice-reported at-risk levels of anxiety and depression, respectively. At-risk was defined as T-scores more than one standard deviation from the norm group mean on psychometrically sound narrowband measures of anxiety and depression. Teachers correctly identified 58.33% of these anxious students and 32.14% of the students with elevated depression, but misidentified 34.52% of non-symptomatic students for anxiety and 23.41% for depression. The school-based mental health staff was largely less accurate than the teachers. The team of school-based mental health professionals accurately identified 12.50% of students for anxiety and 26.32% for depression, and falsely identified 10.31% for anxiety and 25.49% for depression. The school nurse correctly identified 14.81% of students for anxiety and 14.29% for depression, and misidentified 16.26% for anxiety and 17.83% for depression. Taken together, the use of educator nominations in identification of internalizing middle school students appears most defensible when relying on teacher judgments to identify youth with elevated anxiety. The combined group of core subject area teachers (language arts, math, and social studies) was more accurate than teachers from a single subject area, suggesting that teacher nominations should be elicited from multiple groups of core subject area teachers, particularly math and language arts. Rather than nominating students themselves, school-based mental health professionals may be better situated to deliver professional development to teachers regarding the identification of anxiety and depression. Additionally, although several demographic (i.e., gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status) and psychological features (i.e., symptom severity, symptom type; also socially desirable responding and life satisfaction) were examined for students who were missed and misidentified, few differences emerged between the pairs of groups with similar self-reported levels of symptoms. Exceptions included that students who were misidentified reported higher levels of depressive symptoms (albeit still in the typical range) and less satisfaction with their lives than students who were not nominated by teachers. Thus, teachers may detect some mild mood or quality of life differences among students that do not align with students' self-report of symptoms. The practical implications of all study findings, as well as directions for future research, are discussed

As a universal screening method, teacher nominations have been found to both miss and misidentify a substantial proportion of students with internalizing disorders such as anxiety and depression (Cunningham & Suldo, 2014; Gelley, 2014; Moor et al., 2007). Although some research has explored the accuracy of teacher nominations when used to identify students with anxiety and depression, no research examined the teacher characteristics that are potentially related to accuracy. The current study conducted a secondary analysis of an archival dataset (Gelley, 2014) to determine which characteristics of teachers (N= 19) are more closely related to accuracy in identifying middle school students (N = 233) with elevated levels of anxiety or depression. Teacher characteristics examined include: teacher self-efficacy beliefs in identifying students with anxiety and depression, teacher acceptance of the general method of asking teachers as a whole to identify students with anxiety and depression, teacher gender, years teaching, and subject taught. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the relationships between the aforementioned teacher characteristics and teacher accuracy, defined by the conditional probability indices sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV). The combined predictors explained 38 to 69% of the variance in those indicators of accuracy. Results indicated that in predicting sensitivity, being a language arts or math teacher (as compared to being a social studies teacher), having fewer years of professional experience, and reporting greater acceptance of method may predict higher sensitivity rates. In regards to specificity, higher teacher self-efficacy, being a social studies teacher, being male, and having fewer years of professional experience predicted higher specificity rates. In terms of PPV, having higher acceptance of method and more self-efficacy may explain higher PPV rates. Finally, in terms of NPV, having fewer years of professional experience may explain higher NPV rates. Results from this study may be used to guide collaboration and consultation with teachers in universal screenings, and may inform teacher training programs aimed to increase teacher knowledge and confidence identifying students experiencing emotional distress at school.

This study examined the extent to which teachers’ levels of cultural competence is a factor in the nomination/referral process for gifted identification of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Specifically, this study compared the self-assessed perceptions of second and third grade elementary teachers’ cultural competence to the various factors included in the gifted referral process. A quasi-experimental quantitative study was used. However, this study superficially included some qualitative exploration due to the nature of the open-ended survey questions and secondary data set analysis. Quantitative data were collected via an adapted version of the Cultural Competence Self-Assessment for Teachers survey created by Lindsey, Robins, & Terrell (2009). Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, independent samples t-test, and correlation analysis were conducted. Results revealed that there were no significantly statistical differences in the relationship between teachers’ levels of cultural competence and nomination/referral patterns for gifted identification. Yet, the results also indicated that the district’s second and third grade teachers were generally high on the cultural competence continuum. An overwhelming majority of the teachers believed themselves to be culturally competent however, cultural competence sub-scale scores in institutionalizing cultural knowledge and interacting with CLD students were lower percentages when compared to the other sub-scale scores. In general, this study may have important practical implications for the ongoing process of becoming culturally competent, gifted education practices and policy, teacher preparation, and professional practice.

Screening for emotional and behavioral problems in youth is a well-validated process for elementary-aged children as notable and respected research has provided evidence that children at risk for behavioral and emotional problems can be identified and provided with targeted interventions, which prevent additional problems (Lane, Wehby, & Barton-Arwood, 2005). However, there is a lack of research offering evidence for a behavioral and emotional screening process for high school students. Identifying at-risk youth is a vital component in providing early-intervention services that can remediate problems before they become severe and require resource intensive interventions. This research contributes to the development of a screening measure based on a validated multi-gated screening process for use in high schools. The new measure will be adapted from the Stage 1 of the Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD; Walker & Severson, 1992) used in elementary schools to identify students who are at risk for developing emotional and behavioral disorders. Descriptors of students at-risk for emotional and behavior disorders from Schilling (2009) and a review of items used from common behavior rating scales were used to create a teacher nomination form that will serve as a first gate in the multi-gated screening process. The appropriateness of the descriptors for the teacher nomination form was evaluated by teachers in high schools.