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The consistency of a class of coercive child behaviors across school settings for individual subjects

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Abstract

This study addressed the problem of the intraindividual consistency of a class of coercive child behaviors across two school settings. Observational data were collected on eight coercive behaviors of 53 boys in classrooms and on the playground. Previous Guttman scale analyses had shown that these eight coercive behaviors constituted a response class. The rates of the eight coercive responses in the response class were rank ordered separately for each of the 53 subjects in each of the two settings. The intraindividual rank order correlations were all positive, and 37 were statistically reliable. This number of significant correlations was further shown to be significantly greater than chance. It was concluded that there is a substantial amount of crosssituational consistency if intraresponse class analyses are done for individuals.

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References notes

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oregon Social Learning Center, USA

    John B. Reid

  2. Department of Educational Psychology, California State University, 90840, Long Beach, California

    Alice Harris

Authors
  1. Alice Harris
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  2. John B. Reid
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Additional information

This study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, through Grants l RO1 MH 31017 and 1 ROI MH 33067. The authors wish to thank all of the people at the Oregon Social Learning Center for their support. Particular appreciation is given for the continued help and encouragement received from Gerald R. Patterson.

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Harris, A., Reid, J.B. The consistency of a class of coercive child behaviors across school settings for individual subjects. J Abnorm Child Psychol 9, 219–227 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00919116

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00919116

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