Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Assessment Within Tiered Decision-Making Frameworks: Advancing Research Through Reflections on the Past Decade

Abstract

Schools play a critical role in service delivery related to students' social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) health. A foundation for effective SEB service delivery includes capacity to identify students in need of support, differentiate which supports are needed, and monitor students' responsiveness to intervention. Assessment is critical for each of these goals, providing the data needed to make effective decisions across the continuum of service delivery. This special issue provides opportunity to reflect on the past decade of research that strengthens the psychometric evidence for use of the measures in SEB assessment, as well as address several themes that characterize recent SEB assessment research. In this introductory article, we introduce a series of original articles and commentaries addressing these critical issues that are timely and relevant for the future path of SEB assessment. Taken together, the current issue seeks to bring together current evidence around multitiered problem-solving frameworks with focus on SEB domain and propose future directions for research and practice. IMPACT STATEMENTSThe paper describes key themes related to current status and future directions in social, emotional, and behavioral assessment. Those themes are organized around usability, rater effects, a balanced focus on assets and deficits, and equity considerations.

Risk Profiles of Korean Adolescents in Relations With Contextual Factors: Implications for Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

“…Youth at-risk identified from the current study showed the highest levels of risks among four risk profiles across social, emotional, behavioral, and academic domains. Through this result, MTSS, a comprehensive framework aimed to address the interplay of social, emotional, behavioral, and academic functioning in the classroom ( 24 , 25 ), can be suggested as the most suitable educational service for youth at-risk.…”

“…Youth at-risk identified from the current study showed the highest levels of risks among four risk profiles across social, emotional, behavioral, and academic domains. Through this result, MTSS, a comprehensive framework aimed to address the interplay of social, emotional, behavioral, and academic functioning in the classroom (24,25), can be suggested as the most suitable educational service for youth at-risk. It was also found that the M-SEB group showed higher risks in aggression, social withdrawal, and depression than in academic behavior and academic motivation, while the M-ACA group indicated the opposite result.…”

“…There were numerous attempts to support youth at-risk within school settings, and among them, the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) has been the representative model of early identification and systematic intervention targeting students at-risk. MTSS is a comprehensive framework designed to address the interplay of social, emotional, behavioral, and academic functioning and adaptation in the classroom ( 24 , 25 ), which encompasses every kind of challenge students face. It emphasizes students' responsiveness to intervention and requires both universal and incrementally intensive strategies that encompass the students with diverse severity of difficulties ( 26 ) by providing more intensive strategies to students who do not respond to general instructions ( 24 ).…”

Usability and social consequences of the early identification system as a universal screener for social, emotional, and behavioral risks.

“…EIS and its local norming approach were designed intentionally to get schools and adults to focus on the very contexts that create educational inequities, rather than situating problems within youth (Dowdy et al, 2010; Kim et al, 2022). We provide evidence in this article that schools use this data to change adult behavior and to approach problems differently.…”

“…Another aspect of social consequences is to consider how equitable the tool is used across school contexts. When used correctly, universal screening with tools like the EIS have been suggested as an approach to reduce disproportionate special education classifications (Raines et al, 2012) and to promote proactive early identification and contextual supports (Kim et al, 2022). One way to frame equitable use of a tool or framework is to examine how consistently and properly it is applied across different school contexts where known inequities occur.…”