Teachers play a crucial role in the assessment of children's internalizing symptoms but may not always succeed in accurately identifying such symptoms in class. Using a multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) approach, this study aimed to explore teacher and child characteristics that may explain measurement bias in teachers' ratings of internalizing symptoms at the between- and within-teacher level. Upper elementary school teachers (N = 92, 74.9% female) filled out the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, Student-Teacher Relationship Scale, and Student-Specific Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale for randomly selected children (N = 690, 50.5% girls, Grades 3–6) from their classrooms. Participating teachers and children also responded to several background questions. Multilevel SEMs suggested that teachers' self-efficacy beliefs toward, relationship experiences with, and externalizing symptom ratings of individual children affected their ratings of these children's internalizing symptoms at the within-teacher level. Specifically, given equal levels of internalizing behavior, teachers were likely to systematically under-identify symptoms of anxiety and over-identify bullying for children with more externalizing behavior and conflictual relationships, or in circumstances where teachers had lower self-efficacy. Children with high levels of closeness received systematically higher ratings on somatic complaints and lower ratings on solitary behavior and peer problems. At the between-teacher level, less experienced teachers were more likely to over-identify symptoms of worries than were more experienced teachers, given equal levels of internalizing symptoms. As such, these findings extend the limited body of evidence on children's internalizing symptoms in upper elementary school.

教师在评估儿童的内化症状方面发挥着至关重要的作用，但在课堂上可能无法准确识别此类症状。本研究使用多层次结构方程模型 (MSEM) 方法，旨在探索教师和儿童的特征，这些特征可以解释教师在教师之间和教师内部层面对内化症状评分的测量偏差。高中教师（N  = 92，74.9% 女性）为随机选择的儿童（N = 690，50.5% 的女孩，3-6 年级）来自她们的教室。参与的老师和孩子们还回答了几个背景问题。多层次 SEMs 表明，教师对个别儿童的自我效能信念、关系经验和外化症状评分影响了他们在教师内部水平上对这些儿童内化症状的评分。具体而言，考虑到同等水平的内化行为，教师可能系统性地低估焦虑症状，过度识别具有更多外化行为和冲突关系的儿童的欺凌，或者在教师自我效能较低的情况下。高度亲近的儿童在躯体问题上的评分系统较高，而在孤独行为和同伴问题上的评分较低。在教师之间的水平上，考虑到同等水平的内化症状，经验不足的教师比经验丰富的教师更有可能过度识别担忧的症状。因此，这些发现扩展了关于儿童高年级内化症状的有限证据。