The Assessment of Achievement-Related Classroom Behavior

Hahnemann Community Mental Health Center Philadelphia, Pennsylvania This study was part of an extensive inquiry into the relationship between children’s classroom behavior and their academic success or failure in grades kindergarten through 12. (Spivack & Swift, 1966; Swift & Spivack, 1967a). The initial purpose of the project was to learn how disturbed classroom behaviors are organized in both normal and special classes and to assess the correlation between these behaviors and achievement, intelligence, age, sex, and (among abnormal children) clinical diagnosis. First, teachers were asked to describe the behaviors of the children in their classrooms. Then a factor analytic technique was used to organize the observed behaviors into meaningful clusters (factors). Twelve behavioral factors evolved, ten of which