Child behavior and emotional problems in Jamaican classrooms: a multimethod study using direct observations and teacher reports for ages 6-11

International research on children's problems relies heavily on parent and teacher ratings. Such ratings are helpful to professionals who assess children but are subjected to biases emerging from adults' personal involvement with the children they rate, and their own cultural experiences. This study investigated whether ratings of teachers versus observers on Jamaican children ages 6-11 differed according to informant, urban versus rural area, gender, and age. Significantly higher total problem scores emerged for ratings by observers than those by teachers. Observers also rated younger children as more demanding and aggressive while both informants rated rural children as exhibiting more externalizing problems than urban children. Opportunity for discharging behavior in the environment may have caused rural children to present more externalizing problems. Media and training effects may have increased teachers' tolerance for problems in children nationwide, but in contrast to observers' circumscribed observation periods, teachers' ratings may reflect their perspectives on children's problems over an entire academic year. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.