The Behavioral and Emotional Screening System Student Form: Is There Evidence of a Global At-Risk Factor in a Sample of Predominantly African American Youth?

Abstract

School-based universal screening for behavioral and emotional risk can serve as a foundation for effective multi-tiered service delivery systems. The current study examines the measurement and structure of one such universal screener, the Behavioral and Emotional Screening System Student Form (BESS SF). Four models were investigated including a unidimensional model, a multidimensional model, a second-order model, and a bifactor model. This study is the first to use a bifactor model in examining the structure of the BESS SF, and further adds to the literature by using bifactor modeling with a predominantly low-income, urban, African American sample. Results indicate that the bifactor model provided the best fit. Practically, results support interpretation of the global risk score as well as the domain-specific factors.

Assessing the Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance of the BASC-3 Behavioral and Emotional Screening System Student Form Across Race/Ethnicity and Gender

“…Consistent with prior research on the factor structure of its predecessor (Naser et al, 2018b), among a diverse sample of fourth-to eighth-grade students, these findings also supported the bifactor solution for the BESS SF as the bestfitting model. In practice, the general risk score is the most salient indicator of behavioral and emotional risk and the subscales are used to potentially inform the type of risk.…”

“…Then, a series of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models were fit using Mplus, Version 8.4, specifying all items as ordered categorical (L. K. Muthén & Muthén, 2021). Research on the previous BESS SF determined a bifactor model provides the best model fit (Naser et al, 2018b). Therefore, this study compared the bifactor model (Model 1) with two competing models: a non-hierarchical four-factor model (Model 2) and a second-order hierarchical model (Model 3).…”

“…In this study, we first identified the best-fitting factor structure of the latest BESS SF by testing competing models and tested measurement invariance across race/ ethnicity, gender, and school using the best-fitting factor structure. Considering previous empirical support on the previous BASC-2 BESS SF for using a bifactor structure compared with other competing models (Dowdy et al, 2011;Naser et al, 2018b), we hypothesized that the bifactor model would provide the best fit compared with a non-hierarchical four-factor model and a second-order hierarchical model (Hypothesis 1). Next, as studies on the previous BESS SF (Harrell-Williams et al, 2015;Kim & Kamphaus, 2018) supported full and partial invariance across race/ethnicity and gender, respectively, we also expected the latest BESS SF to be invariant across White, Black, and Latinx students and across boys and girls (Hypotheses 2 and 3).…”

“…For example, one student may have higher risk due to elevated internalizing risk whereas another student may have higher risk due to elevated selfregulation risk. Therefore, prior studies have supported modeling previous versions of the BESS SF using a bifactor structure, as this structure accounts for both global risk and underlying sources of risk (Dowdy et al, 2011;Naser et al, 2018b). Even with empirical support for modeling the BESS SF using a bifactor structure, few studies have tested the factor structure of the BESS SF including miscellaneous school-related items as a latent construct.…”