Evidence of the Internal Structure and Measurement Invariance of the BASC-3 Behavioral and Emotional Screening System Teacher Form

The Behavior Assessment System for Children, Third Edition (BASC-3) Behavioral and Emotional Screening System Teacher Form (BESS) is a universal screening measure designed to identify social, emotional, and behavioral risks in students. A series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were conducted to examine the extent to which the developer-proposed factor model fits the BASC-3 BESS data within an elementary K-5 sample of students (N = 1472). Results suggested a higher-order factor structure, which was specified in accordance with developer recommendations, provided acceptable fit to the BASC-3 BESS data. Measurement invariance of the factor structure across student age levels was then examined via a series of multi-group CFA models. Introduction Multi-group CFA findings supported the configural, metric, and scalar invariance of the factor structure across age levels. Practical implications for educators and school psychologists interested in universal screening and directions for future research are discussed.