Social validity focuses on a program's goals, procedures, and outcome, which helps determine if an intervention is socially acceptable and valued. This study represents a conceptual replication of the investigation by Lane and colleagues (2009) regarding the psychometric properties of the Primary Intervention Rating Scale (PIRS), a teacher survey designed to measure social validity of positive behavior support. Lane and colleagues' results indicated the PIRS was a one-factor measure with strong reliability and structural validity. To substantiate these findings, we distributed an adapted version of the PIRS to teachers from a school district in the Mountain West region. We collected data from 153 elementary and middle school teachers and computed results with a series of statistical analyses including confirmatory factor analyses as well as Cronbach's alpha and Raykov's rho. We affirmed the findings of the PIRS as a one-factor measure with strong internal consistency and no significant differences in scores based on the school level. Study limitations and implications are addressed.

This study investigates how the culminating teacher preparation program (TPP) experience (either student teaching assignment or internship) influences the perceptions teachers report about their ability to perform instructional tasks required of teachers. A multivariate ANOVA test (N = 502) was conducted to compare perceptions of student teachers (those who taught 15 weeks) and interns (those who taught a full academic year) at two points in time—once at the conclusion of their TPP and again after their first year of teaching. Results indicate that overall, student teachers report higher perceptions of their ability to perform instructional tasks than interns do at both the preservice and inservice teacher stages. Interns reported higher scores at the inservice stage on only the mathematics subscale, suggesting that there is some change in self-efficacy as teachers gain teaching experience. Findings suggest that the student teaching context provides more modeling and verbal support and produces teachers with higher perceptions of teaching ability than those who complete an internship.

Value-added estimates of teacher quality are attempts to determine to what degree a teacher theoretically would contribute, on average, to the test score gains of any student in the accountability population (i.e., district or state). The authors suggest an alternative statistical methodology, propensity score matching, which allows estimation of how well a teacher performed relative only to the students similar to those actually assigned to that teacher. This approach more closely fits the appropriate role of an accountability system—to estimate how well an employee performed in the job actually assigned. It also has the benefit of requiring fewer statistical assumptions—assumptions that are frequently violated in value-added modeling.

There has been an increasing emphasis on multicultural issues as they relate to service and education provided to those with developmental disabilities such as autism. Research is just beginning to be conducted and disseminated on prevalence variability. The current study reports trends in the educational classification for multicultural students with autism. Results indicate that identification rates have increased for all racial/ethnic categories except for those who are Hispanic.

The professional literature provides ample evidence that individuals with autism exhibit a myriad of unusual social, communication, and behavioral patterns of interactions that present challenges to their families and service providers. However, there is a dearth of quality works on multicultural issues regarding autistic spectrum disorders. In this article, we explore issues surrounding autism and multiculturalism, with the intent not to provide answers but to raise questions for further examination. We focus our discussions on two primary issues: autism within cultural groups and multicultural family adaptation based on the framework of pluralistic societies in which some cultural groups are a minority within the dominant culture. We found differences in prevalence rates across races for autism and little information regarding how multicultural families adapt to raising a child with autism. Further, students with multicultural backgrounds and autism are challenged on at least four dimensions: communication, social skills, behavioral repertoires, and culture. Future research in these areas is clearly warranted.