Development of a modified treatment evaluation inventory

Kazdin's (1980a) Treatment Evaluation Inventory (TEI) is the major instrument used to assess parents' acceptance of procedures for behavior problem children. The length of the TEI, however, as well as problems with its scaling and wording limits its value as a clinical research instrument. In the present study, three experiments were conducted to develop a modified TEI. In Experiment 1, 153 parents completed the TEI to evaluate a behavioral treatment for noncompliant and oppositional children. A factor analysis of the data was used to obtain a reliable factor structure for the TEI and to construct a 9-item TEI-Short Form (TEI-SF) with a 5-point scale, consistent anchors on the scale, and simplified text and instructions. Experiment 2 evaluated the psychometric characteristics of the TEI and the TEI-SF. These data indicated the TEI-SF is a sound alternative to the original TEI. Experiment 3 compared the readability and completion time of the two instruments.