Systematic Screening at the Middle School Level

This article presents findings of two studies, one conducted with middle school students ( n = 500) in a rural setting and a second conducted with middle school students ( n = 528) in an urban setting, of the reliability and validity of the Student Risk Screening Scale (SRSS; Drummond, 1994). Results revealed high internal consistency, test—retest stability, and convergent validity with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997). In addition, short-term predictive validity was established; namely, students with risk statuses of low ( n = 422), moderate ( n = 51), and high ( n = 12) according to the SRSS could best be differentiated by behavioral variables (e.g., ODR, in-school suspensions). Although academic variables could differentiate between students with moderate or high risks and students without (low) risk, these variables did not differentiate between students in the moderate-risk group and students in the high-risk group as did the behavioral variables. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.