Disruptive Behavior Scale Professed by Students (DBS-PS): Development and Validation

This study presents both the construction procedures and the results obtained with a 16-items Disruptive Behavior Scale Professed by Students (DBS-PS) for Portuguese students. The sample was made of 915 subjects from the 7th, the 8th, and the 9th grades. Results obtained with that self-report instrument were analyzed, and measures of reliability and of construct and concurrent discrimination were estimated. Three specific factors were identified for the school disruption through varimax-rotation factor analysis. These factors accounted for 51 per cent of the total variance. Reliability coefficients ranged between.67 and.88 for different factors and groups (socio-economic status, residential zone, sex, age and grade). Concurrent validity coefficients were satisfactory. Results were in accordance with the psychometric theory of psychological evaluation