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Randy W. Kamphaus

Randy W. KamphausDistinguished Research Professor 2004

Randy W. Kamphaus, Professor and Head of the Department of Educational Psychology, studies children’s emotional and behavioral development. His research has caused educators and psychologists to rethink how they diagnose children’s academic, behavioral and emotional development. He has developed a child behavior classification system and co-developed a standard assessment tool for school psychologists and education experts. The Behavior Assessment System for Children, or BASC, evaluates behavior along a continuum of characteristics. He has used this instrument to better classify children’s behavior into seven distinct types of children’s behavioral adjustment in school. Used in all 50 states and several foreign countries, BASC has influenced the learning environment, particularly classroom management and teacher-student interaction and enables teachers to devise intervention programs based on individual needs. BASC is being used to assess 5,000 children in a CDC-funded study of middle school violence. Its publisher notes that BASC is among the world’s most recommended child evaluation measures. He has written or edited nine major texts, including Clinical Assessment of Children’s Intelligence, the text of choice at leading universities such as Stanford and the University of North Carolina. Since 1997, his research has received more than $1.5 million from the U.S. Department of Education.