Perceptions of risk factors for school violence: concordance with FBI risk profile.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI, 2000) recently released a report on common background characteristics of school shooters, which also stressed the importance of evaluating the reality of threat. The present study evaluated respondents' ability to discriminate between an unrealistic and a realistic threat and between a low and high risk level based on the FBI's background profile characteristics as well as to determine attitudes about whether some intervention was necessary. Respondents completed one of four randomly distributed vignettes, which differed in a 2 X 2 design (high vs. low background risk X realistic vs. unrealistic threat). These vignettes described a student who made a threatening statement regarding a teacher. Respondents then rated the student's level of risk for violence and indicated the degree to which they would intervene. Results revealed that, in keeping with the FBI guidelines, both reality of threat and background risk characteristics significantly influenced respondents' perceived risk for violence and need to intervene. Implications for educational settings and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]