The set of rating scales provided by the Conners 3 helps teachers gather information about student behavior and feelings. They can be completed by parents and youth, as well as teachers.
The Conners 3 was developed by Dr. Conners, who is an expert in child behavior. These rating scales are used by teachers all over the globe to draw conclusions from the behavior of youth from many different cultures.
The Conners 3 has been deemed reliable and valid based on a large amount of research, ensuring that the scores the scales produce based on teacher ratings can be trusted.
Teacher Use
The Conners 3 gives teachers the ability to learn more about student behavior and feelings. The more a teacher understands the way the student feels, the more insight they will have into why the student behaves as they do.
Understanding student behavior and feelings will give teachers an opportunity to structure learning in a way that improves their academics and can have an impact on their peer interactions in an instructional setting.
How to Use the Conners 3 Scales
Ratings from at least two teachers will provide a more complete and consistent picture of how the student behaves in several different classroom settings and can prove beneficial for analysis of the difficulty a child is having.
Identifying a child’s difficulties in the classroom can be a valuable asset in determining how to help them succeed. The Conners 3 scales will also help ensure that interventions are helping and that the youth is improving.
Teachers may also choose to use the Conners 3 scales as a routine check even if the youth does not appear to be struggling with any problems.
How the Conners 3 Works
The teacher starts by reading 115 items and indicating how often the youth has displayed the behavior in the statement in the past month. The options are not at all/never, just a little true/occasionally, pretty much true/often, or very much true/very frequently.
The teacher’s responses to these items are combined into several groups and each group describes a certain type of behavior, such as aggression or inattention. The teacher’s responses are then compared with what is expected of the age and gender of the youth being evaluated.
The scores will help determine how similar the youth is to his or her peers and will help the teacher understand if the youth is having more difficulties in one particular area than other youths of their same age and gender.
Results of the Teacher Form
Once the teacher completes the Conners 3 forms, an assessor will help explain the results and answer questions. The scores are calculated based on how the teacher describes the youth in the past month, so the teacher’s answers give the assessor an accurate picture of how the youth behaves at school.
Supplemental information from parents, other tests, and observations can all be combined to determine if the youth needs help and what kind of help they need. The teacher may also choose to provide any other helpful insights as well as take notes for the assessor to help make these determinations.
Visit WPS to learn more about the Conners 3 and other educational and psychological assessments.
