What Puts Pupils at Risk? An Analysis of Classroom Teachers' Judgments of Pupils' Behavior

Fifty-four general classroom teachers completed a brief demographic questionnaire and a modified version of the SBS Inventory of Teacher Social Behavior Standards and Expectations, on which they were asked to indicate whether the absence of certain adaptive behaviors or presence of certain maladaptive behaviors places a pupil at risk. Significant relationships were found between teachers’ standards and expectations for behavior and their judgments of risk. Teachers judging more adaptive behaviors to be critical and more maladaptive behaviors to be unacceptable also judged the absence of more adaptive behaviors and presence of more maladaptive behaviors as placing a pupil at risk. Not all failures to exhibit critically important adaptive behavior and not all unacceptable behaviors were judged as placing a pupil at risk; teachers discriminated between behaviors not meeting their personal standards and expectations and those likely to heighten risk. Implications for research and practice were discussed.