Assessing the Acceptability of Problem-Solving Procedures by School Teams: Preliminary Development of the Pre-Referral Intervention Team Inventory

The responses of 472 educators were used to develop the Pre-Referral Intervention Team Inventory (PRITI), a 24-item Likert scale. Principal axis analyses resulted in a one-dimensional structure with high internal consistency that explained 57% of the total variance. Acceptability of team procedures was strongly and positively correlated with a measure of team members' interaction practices and negatively related to professional stress. These results suggest that (a) pending further analyses and development, the PRITI may prove useful for assessing school staff acceptability perceptions of pre-referral team consultation procedures and (b) team process variables are important predictors of the acceptability of pre-referral team consultation procedures to educators. Directions for future research are proposed.