Stephen Nelson Elliott

• PhD
• Professor at Arizona State University

Stress is a complex construct that is related to resilience and general health starting in childhood. Despite its importance for student health and well-being, there are few measures of stress designed for school-based applications. In this study, we developed and initially validated a Stress Indicators Scale using five samples of teachers, parents...

Social skills are critical behaviors that enable students to effectively navigate their social lives. Further, social skills function as protective factors against emotional behavior concerns and enable strong academic growth. Social skills can be developed and improved via programs implemented in schools. Students identified as gifted have long fa...

The SSIS SEL Brief + Mental Health Scales (SSIS SELb+MHS) are multi-informant assessments developed in the United States to assess the social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies and emotional behavior concerns (EBCs) of school-age youth. Although there are translations of the SEL items of the SSIS SELb+MHS available in other languages, a Germ...

Although the COVID-19 Pandemic began in 2020, it continues to exert a negative impact on the social, emotional, behavioral, and academic wellbeing of many children and youth across the globe (e.g., Bell et al., 2023; Panchal et al., 2023) and throughout Europe (European Education and Culture Executive Agency, 2022). To address these significant nee...

Although there is increased interest in social and emotional competence and mental health in Croatia, there are currently limited measurement options available for early childhood settings. Thus, the SSIS SEL Brief Scales (SSIS SELb), an efficient measure of social and emotional learning competencies developed in the United States, was translated t...

When conducting universal social and emotional learning (SEL) screening, schools need clear decision-making guidelines for selecting informants. The current study examined informant profiles for screening SEL functioning using latent profile analysis with the student and teacher forms of the SSIS SEL Brief Scales for 536 students in grades 3–7. Tea...

Introduction Despite increasing interest in measuring social and emotional learning (SEL), there is a lack of European-validated tools for assessing the efficacy of SEL programs. The aim of this study was to validate an Italian version of the social skills improvement system (SSIS) SEL brief scales–student form. Methods Participants were 1,175 stu...

Although children use social and emotional learning skills (SEL) across the world, the expression of these skills may vary across cultures and developmental levels. Such variability complicates the process of assessing SEL competencies with consequences for understanding differences in SEL skills and developing interventions. To address these chall...

The SSIS SEL Brief Scales (SSIS SELb) are multi-informant (teacher, parent, and student) measures that were developed to efficiently assess the SEL competencies of school-age youth in the United States. Recently, the SSIS SELb was translated into multiple languages for use in a multi-site study across six European countries (Croatia, Greece, Italy,...

Objectives: This study explores the patterns of agreement and discrepancy among informants (teachers, parents, and students) in the domains of the Social Emotional Skills Scale Assessment System—Social Skills Scales (SESAS-SS), which is a translation of the Social Skills Improvement System—Rating Scales (SSIS-RS) for use in Spain. Methods: The samp...

Objective The objective of this research was to develop a brief version of the well-established Social Skills Improvement System Social Emotional Learning (SSIS SEL) Parent Rating Form (2017) so that parents' voices are heard by schools where programs to facilitate children's social emotional learning (SEL) are increasingly popular. Background Par...

Although interest in social-emotional learning (SEL) is growing, there are few efficient measures of SEL constructs, especially those of the popular CASEL Framework. To address this need, the SSIS SEL Brief Scales (SSIS SELb) were developed. Initial evidence for the SSIS SELb is promising, but evidence is needed for its structural validity. The pur...

Parents play a major role in children’s development and have unique opportunities to observe a wide range of their children’s social–emotional behavior at home and in their communities. Yet parents’ input via universal screening assessments into school-based social–emotional learning (SEL) programs for their children has been limited by a paucity o...

Universal screening of students is increasing as programs are implemented for improving social emotional learning (SEL) skills. Assessments used to conduct SEL screenings focus on social emotional strengths; however, such assessments can provide a broader characterization of students’ wellbeing by concurrently screening for emotional behavior conce...

Despite the need for assessments targeting social and emotional learning (SEL) skills within multi-tiered systems of support, there are few brief SEL measures available. To address this need, this article describes the development of the SSIS SEL Brief Scales – Teacher Form (SSIS SELb-T), a significantly shorter version of the SSIS SEL Edition Rati...

Interest in social and emotional learning (SEL) skills is growing rapidly with all 50 states adopting SEL standards for preschool children. However, data on these type of skills for young children are limited due to a paucity of psychometrically-sound assessments. Further, most available assessments are lengthy and minimally aligned with widely use...

This study examined within-year mathematics gains in the context of students’ education status and teachers’ opportunity-to-learn (OTL) performance for 60 general education teachers and 219 students with and without disabilities. Multilevel analyses did not support teachers’ OTL performance as a statistically significant predictor of model slope or...

The SSIS SEL Brief Scales–Student Form (SSIS SELb-S) was developed to create an efficient assessment of students’ social and emotional learning (SEL). Using item response theory with ratings from 800 students in Grades 3–12 from the standardization sample, 20 items were selected from the full-length SSIS SEL Rating Form - Student to maximize score...

This secondary data analysis examined the social behavior competencies of a sample of students from the U.S. ages 8 to 18 who identified themselves as either bullies or non-bullies based on ratings of items on the Social Skills Improvement System – Student Rating Scale (SSIS-S). Specifically, from the nationally representative standardization sampl...

Short term experimental studies by DiPerna and colleagues have demonstrated the efficacy of the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS) to measure and improve the social skills and academic functioning of students from Preparatory year to Grade 3 and to decrease problem behaviours. This longitudinal school-led project applied the multi-tiered asses...

This study analyzed teacher ratings from the national standardization sample of the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS) to examine the role of elementary and secondary students’ social skills, problem behavior, and academic competence as they relate to bullying behavior. Regression analyses indicated slightly different concurrent predictors of...

This article presents theoretical and empirical support for a data-driven instructional coaching approach and emerging evidence for the contributions of an online platform in operationalizing, assessing, and facilitating the implementation of key coaching actions for both research and practice. The contributions of an online platform in guiding the...

The conceptual foundation and initial psychometric evidence are provided for the Instructional Coaching Rating Scales and Interaction Style Scales–Teacher Forms. These forms are part of a multicomponent online assessment system designed to evaluate the effectiveness of coaching skills and interactions that support the needs of teachers and students...

State accountability systems assume standards based instruction and test content are highly aligned and opportunities to learn the content exist equally for all students. This alignment between content taught and tested is important to understand achievement, yet it is rarely examined. Teachers from Grades 3 to 8 participated along with students wi...

This study described the development of the Social Skills Improvement System Social Emotional Learning Edition Rating Forms (SSIS SEL RF) for teachers, parents, and students. This new multirater assessment is a reconfiguration of the SSIS Rating Scales items inspired by the CASEL Social Emotional Competency framework. The internal structure and sco...

The authors examined the cross-informant consistency and level of agreement of ratings on the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS) Bullying Subscale. They explored the effectiveness of using this set of multi-informant (i.e., teacher, parent, and student) social skills rating scales with an established record of yielding reliable and valid score...

Acknowledging the critical role of engagement to learning and achievement, this chapter focuses on students at risk of learning disengagement—marginalized students in alternative education settings who have experienced chronic exclusion and disadvantaged students from high-poverty backgrounds. It provides a description of major issues and problems...

In this chapter, we examine the opportunity to read in schools that serve mostly disadvantaged students from low socioeconomic status (SES) families. Beginning with a discussion on the literature and research on reading motivation and engagement, we argue that the conception of effective readers as motivated and strategic needs attention in its app...

This book examines promoting engagement for children and adolescents from challenging contexts or who are dealing with challenging conditions. The volume concentrates on three vulnerable groups: marginalized youths who have experienced repeated exclusion and sought their second chance in alternative education; children who are coming from economica...

In this chapter, we define and examine the development of social skills known to be influential in students’ lives, particularly in school. We specifically identify social skills critical for engagement in learning and describe several school-based programs designed to teach or improve a robust set of social skills known to be helpful at school, ho...

For all who consider education as the fundamental preparation for a flourishing life, there is particular reason to be mindful and attentive to those of our youth who have failed during their schooling to develop the means for preparing. Many of these young people are in danger of becoming progressively sidelined from opportunities of personal and...

In many OECD countries, including Australia, attention is required to examine and solve the problem of low levels of engagement in, and aspiration for, advanced mathematics among students coming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Not only are students from disadvantaged backgrounds in Australia overrepresented among those who fail to meet...

This chapter provides a brief review of current research models on learning engagement, highlighting the distinction between indicators and facilitators of engagement. In relation to engagement indicators, this chapter discusses research that has examined behavioral, cognitive, and affective dimensions of engagement. Alongside these indicators, we...

Not fitting easily into mainstream education is a depiction of students for whom creation and management of learning and development opportunities are so problematic, or are expected to be, that alternative education seems a more appropriate instructional environment. Key elements in this rationale suggest that students who “don’t fit easily” have...

This final chapter reflects on the discussion throughout this book and provides a summary of what has preceded. It highlights key factors and variables that are essential for developing empowering classroom practices and innovative pedagogical models for promoting learning engagement among students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds or are aff...

Accessibility—defined as the extent to which a product, environment, or system eliminates barriers and permits equal use of components and services for a diverse population of individuals—is necessary for effective instruction and fair testing. To the extent that instruction, instructional materials, and tests are not accessible, engagement is unde...

Through a two study simulation design with different design conditions (sample size/time points at level 1 (L1) was set to 3, level 2 (L2) sample size ranged from 10 to 75, level 3 (L3) sample size ranged from 30 to 150, intraclass correlation (ICC) ranging from 0.10 to 0.50, model complexity ranging from one predictor to three predictors), this st...

The introductory chapter of the Handbook of Accessible Instruction and Testing Practices focuses on accessibility issues along the journey from an individual content standard or set of standards to the inferences that can be drawn from an item or test score about the performance of a student, teacher, and school. We highlight accessibility to instr...

In this chapter, we recount and highlight key points from the preceding chapters made about accessibility policies, professional development, and practical tools/frameworks to guide practice. Based on this “progress update,” we observe some steps that can be taken to advance instructional and testing practices to make learning more accessible for a...

The Second Edition of this handbook provides comprehensive coverage of the concept of accessibility and its application to the design and implementation of instruction and tests with all students. It updates and expands on its original contents and responds to the increasing demand for research-based evidence of accessible instruction and testing p...

This technical report is one of a series of four technical reports that describe the results of a study comparing eight alternative models for estimating school academic performance using data from Arizona, North Carolina, Oregon, and Pennsylvania accountability systems. Our purpose was not to evaluate or examine the accountability systems in use b...

This technical report is one of a series of four technical reports that describe the results of a study comparing eight alternative models for estimating school academic achievement using data from the Arizona, North Carolina, Oregon, and Pennsylvania accountability systems. Our purpose was not to evaluate or examine the accountability systems in u...

This technical report is one of a series of four technical reports that describe the results of a study comparing eight alternative models for estimating school academic achievement using data from the Arizona, North Carolina, Oregon, and Pennsylvania accountability systems. Our purpose was not to evaluate or examine the accountability systems in u...

Achievement tests are used to measure the degree to which examinees can demonstrate acquisition, and in many cases application, of knowledge and skills taught and deemed important for future learning or work. The contexts in which these tests are used range from teacher-made testing in elementary and secondary schools to high-stakes testing for col...

This study examines the agreement across informant pairs of teachers, parents, and students regarding the students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) competencies. Two student subsamples representative of the social skills improvement system (SSIS) SEL edition rating forms national standardization sample were examined: first, 168 students (3rd to 12t...

In this retrospective commentary on “Acceptability of Behavioral Interventions Used in Classrooms: The Influence of Amount of Teacher Time, Severity of Behavior Problem, and Type of Intervention,” I first examine the concept of social validity and related measurement challenges per Wolf’s concerns about consumers’ subjective reactions to behavior i...

In two studies, we examined the social and cognitive correlates of relational aggression in preschoolers. Participants were 215 4-to 6-year-olds, recruited from differing socioeconomic regions of a major metropolitan city in Iran. Given the mixed findings in the literature about the association between relational aggression and language, we used la...

Adjustments are considered necessary for students with disabilities to be fully included in classroom instruction, classroom assessment and external accountability tests. The 67 item Checklist of Learning and Assessment Adjustments for Students (CLAAS), translated for the Chinese community, was used by 74 teachers from Macau and Mainland China to d...

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is a critical aspect of schooling. While a theoretical model put forward by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has defined five well-accepted components of SEL, few assessments claim to measure these SEL components. This study examined the initial validation of scores for a new uni...

The Vanderbilt Assessment for Leadership in Education (VAL-ED) is a 360-degree learning-centered behaviors principal evaluation tool that includes ratings from the principal, supervisors, and teachers. The current study assesses the test-retest reliability of the VAL-ED for a sample of seven school districts as part of multiple validity and reliabi...

Our purpose was to examine different approaches to modeling the time-varying nature of exceptionality classification. Using longitudinal data from one state’s mathematics achievement test for 28,829 students in Grades 3 to 8, we describe the reclassification rate within special education and between general and special education, and compare four a...

Research that examines technology use in the context of daily classroom practices is needed to support the effective digital conversion of classrooms. In this study, 65 seventh- through 10th-grade Mathematics and English Language Arts teachers from six districts across six states logged information about digital strategies they incorporated into th...

We examined instructional processes in classrooms where students with and without disabilities received mathematics instruction to understand the relationship among key instructional process variables and achievement as measured by interim and end-of-year summative assessments. Teachers (N = 78) completed instructional logs daily and administered e...

These psychology articles were commissioned by an editorial board as part of our former online-only review article series. We are offering them here as a freely available collection.

Accommodations or adjustments for students with disabilities (SWDs) who need them are required in Australian education law and policy for classroom instruction and assessment, and external educational accountability tests. Drawing upon the structure of the Assessment Accommodations Checklist and more than a decade of accessibility research, the Che...

Reading comprehension growth trajectories from 3rd to 7th grade were estimated for 99,919 students on a state reading comprehension assessment. We examined whether differences between students in general education (GE) and groups of students identified as exceptional learners were best characterized as stable, widening, or narrowing. The groups inc...

The stakes of large-scale testing programs have grown considerably in the past decade with the enactment of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race To The Top (RTTT) legislations. A significant component of NCLB has been required reporting of annual yearly progress (AYP) of student subgroups disaggregated by sex, special education status, English...

Decades of research on social skills assessment and intervention indicates the importance of social skills in improving academic achievement. Additionally, a strong evidence base promotes the inclusion of social–emotional learning into the whole school curriculum. In recognition of this evidence, the new Australian Curriculum, under Personal and so...

Students with disabilities have been included in state accountability systems for more than a decade; however, only in the past few years have alternate assessments of alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS) become stable enough to allow examination of these students’ achievement growth. Using data from Oregon’s AA-AAS in Reading during the period...

The Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS; Gresham & Elliott, 2008) is a multiple stage, broadband system for assessing and intervening with children in preschool through 12th grade originally normed in the USA. Two of the assessment components of this system were analysed: (a) the Performance Screening Guides (PSGs); and (b) the Rating Scales (RS...

US colleges presently face an academic plight; thousands of high school graduates are performing below the expected ability for college-level mathematics. This paper describes an innovative approach intended to improve the mathematics performance of first-year college students, at a large US university. The innovation involved the integration of fa...

Response-to-intervention (RTI) systems posit that Tier 1 consists of high-quality general classroom instruction using evidence-based methods to address the needs of most students. However, data on the extent to which general education teachers provide such instruction are rarely collected. This missing instructional data problem may result in RTI d...

Opportunity to learn refers to the extent to which teachers dedicate instructional time and content coverage to the intended curriculum using a range of cognitive processes, instructional practices, and grouping formats. This article describes the My Instructional Learning Opportunities Guidance System, a research-based online teacher log that allo...

This study estimated mathematics achievement growth trajectories in a statewide sample of 92,045 students with and without disabilities over Grades 3 to 7. Students with disabilities (SWDs) were identified in seven exceptionality categories. Students without disabilities (SWoDs) were categorized as General Education (GE) or Academically/Intellectua...

Current legislation encourages schools to educate students with disabilities (SWDs) in general education settings to the greatest extent appropriate. However, it is unclear whether inclusion in general education settings provides SWDs a sufficient opportunity to learn the academic content assessed by accountability measures. This initial study was...

Effective distractors in multiple-choice items should attract lower ability students, those with misconceptions or limited knowledge and skills, because they are based on common misconceptions or errors in logic. A large, multi-state data set collected for a quasi-experimental study on test modifications was analyzed to measure the impact on distra...

Two studies were conducted with samples of middle and high school teachers and students to examine cross-informant agreement on the Academic Competence Evaluation Scales. Cross-informant agreement was examined using Pearson correlations and conditional probability indices. Results of Study 1 (N = 65) and Study 2 (N = 66) indicated that teacher and...

This study provides initial evidence supporting intended score interpretations for the purpose of assessing opportunity to learn (OTL) via an online teacher log. MyiLOGS yields 5 scores related to instructional time, content, and quality. Based on data from 46 middle school classes, the evidence indicated that (a) MyiLOGS has high usability, (b) it...

Teachers' and parents' importance ratings of social behaviors for 95 preschoolers were examined using the Social Skills Improvement System-Rating Scales (Gresham & Elliott, 2008). Multivariate analyses were used to examine parents' and teachers' importance ratings at the item and subscale levels. Overall, parents assigned significantly higher impor...

The predictive validity of a recently published behavioral rating scale for identifying gifted and creative students (Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students [SRBCSS]) was investigated for three ethnic by socioeconomic groups. Regression analyses were computed between the SRBCSS and both the Stanford Achievement Test (...

We describe the concept of a dynamic instructional practices portfolio to evaluate special education teachers. This portfolio features the My Instructional Learning Opportunities Guidance System (MyiLOGS) as the core component. MyiLOGS is an online, daily self-report measure of opportunity to learn (OTL) that provides detailed information on teache...

The Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education (VAL-ED) provides educators with a tool for principal evaluation based on principal, teacher, and supervisor reports of principals’ learning-centered leadership. In this study, we conduct a known group analysis as part of a larger argument for the validity of the VAL-ED in US elementary and secon...

Erratum to: Educ Asse Eval AccDOI 10.1007/s11092-013-9180-zWe would like to clarify that the sixth author’s name is spelled Elliott, not Elloitt.

The related constructs of opportunity to learn (OTL) and achievement growth are fundamental aspects of the current large-scale assessment and accountability system in operation in the United States. For purposes of this article, OTL is defined as the degree to which a teacher dedicates instructional time and content coverage to the intended curricu...

Motivated by the multiple-measures clause of recent federal policy regarding student eligibility for alternate assessments based on modified academic achievement standards (AA-MASs), this study examined how scores or combinations of scores from a diverse set of assessments predicted students’ end-of-year proficiency status on statewide achievement...

Purpose: Performance evaluation informs professional development and helps school personnel improve student learning. Although psychometric literature indicates that a rational, sound, and coherent standard-setting process adds to the credibility of an assessment, few studies have empirically examined the decision-making process. This article sheds...

The push toward universally designed assessments has influenced several states to modify items from their general achievement tests to improve their accessibility for all test takers. The current study involved the review of 159 items used by one state across four content areas including science, coupled with the review of 261 science items in thre...

Explored educators' use of the Assessment Accommodation Checklist (AAC) to facilitate selection of assessment accommodations for 2 hypothetical students with disabilities taking either a multiple-choice (MC) test or performance tasks. 92 educators from Wisconsin and 26 state-level educational leaders from across the US participated. Ss did not reco...

Australian legislation and educational policies may espouse, but not yet fully enact, inclusive assessments for all. In relation to the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), for example, almost 5% of students are either exempt or withdrawn. The achievement levels of these students, many of whom have disabilities, are not b...