The social validity of schoolwide positive behavior supports in Utah schools: a student perspective

Schoolwide Positive Behavior and Supports (SWPBS) are being used in thousands of schools throughout the United States with many positive results, including decreased office discipline referrals and increased teaching time. While many of the benefits of SWPBS have been demonstrated, the question of its social validity from the student perspective has yet to be address. This study examines the social validity of SWPBS from the student perspective and assesses the usefulness of two instruments, the ABC Student Survey (ABC) and ABC-UBI Social Validity Interview (SVI), designed to addresses the social validity of SWPBS from the student perspective. The ABC was administered to 3835 students across eight Utah schools and the SVI was administered to 105 students across the same eight schools. The results of both measures were examined to determine the social validity of SWPBS and the acceptability of the psychometric properties of the two measures. The results indicate that in general, students strongly endorsed the social validity of SWPBS. Students tended to endorse the theoretical components of SWPBS more than the practical components. The results of the assessments of the ABC and SVI indicate that the ABC is an adequate measure of the general social validity of SWPBS while the SVI is at present an inadequate measure of the specific components of social validity and SWPBS.