Functional Assessment of School Attendance Problems: An Adapted Version of the School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised

Abstract

The School Refusal Assessment Scale (SRAS) was developed to identify four factors that might maintain a youth’s school attendance problem (SAP), and thus be targeted for treatment. There is still limited support for the four-factor model inherent to the SRAS and its revision (SRAS-R). Recent studies indicate problems with the wording of eight items added to the SRAS to form the SRAS-R. We examined the factorial validity of an adapted item set comprising 16 of the 24 SRAS-R items and eight items developed for this study. The eight items paralleled the content of the SRAS-R items being replaced but were less complex and ambiguous. Data were gathered from 199 youth with a SAP and 131 parents. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the adapted item set supported a four-factor model. Internal consistency reliability of the subscales was higher than it is commonly reported in SRAS-R studies. Concurrent validity was supported by associations between the four factors and measures of internalizing or externalizing behavior. The adapted SRAS-R may help professionals reliably assess the relative strength of factors maintaining SAPs. This is one of the few studies conducted independent of the instrument’s developer and in a school culture different from that where the instrument is usually tested.