Teacher nominations of preschool children at risk for mental health problems: How false is a false positive nomination and what make teachers concerned?

The study investigates how often kindergarten teachers become mistakenly worried about children's development, and why this happened, even when the children did not have serious mental health problems.

These hypotheses were tested:

1. Children who are incorrectly identified by kindergarten teachers will have higher scores for problem behaviours and lower scores for the teacher–child relationship.
2. Children with an increased, but not clinically significant, symptom burden will have a higher probability of mistaken identification.
3. Negative teacher–child relationships, either in the form of high levels of conflict or low levels of closeness, will increase the likelihood of mistaken identification.

The results show that some of the concerns kindergarten teachers had for the children were incorrect. Children who were incorrectly classified as problematic by the kindergarten teachers nevertheless showed poorer outcomes compared to the children they were not worried about. This indicates that although kindergarten teachers may make mistakes, these concerns should be followed up with thorough assessments. This can help identify children who need support to develop positively, even if they do not meet the criteria for serious problems.

169 kindergarten teachers (7% men) reported on 1431 children with an average age of 45 months. The kindergarten teachers were first asked to determine whether they had concerns about the children's development. Then they answered questionnaires about their relationship with the children and their behaviour. If kindergarten teachers had concerns, they could specify them, including aggression, attention, and emotional or social problems.

Stensen, K., Lydersen, S., Stenseng, F., Wallander, J. L. & Drugli, M. B. (2021). "Teacher nominations of preschool children at risk for mental health problems: How false is a false positive nomination and what make teachers concerned?". Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 43(3):646-656.