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Several sources (e.g., parents, teachers, peers or the children and adolescents themselves who were implicated in various problems) have been fundamental elements in the gathering of useful information about antisocial, emotional and school problems. Specifically investigating the usefulness of one of these sources, the present study aims to analyse the power of teachers’ ratings in predicting adolescents’ antisocial behaviour, emotional problems and school dropout.
The sample involves 448 children who were assessed at two periods of time eight years apart.
In 1993 (Time 1), when these children were in the fourth-grade in state schools in the Coimbra region (Portugal), their teachers were asked to fill in the Achenbach’s Teachers Report Form (1991) and a list of academic difficulties. In Time 2, students filled in the Youth Self-Report (Achenbach, 1991) and the Self-Reported Antisocial Behaviour (Loeber et al., 1989).
Teachers’ ratings in elementary schools were only very modest predictors of antisocial behaviour and emotional problems at the end of adolescence. However, teachers’ information about academic difficulties was a good predictor of early school dropout.
These findings strengthen the idea that for an accurate identification of children and adolescents at risk for behavioural or emotional problems several informants and multimethod assessment should be considered.
