The purpose of this study was to discern the current skill level of novice teachers in identifying the function of problem behaviors and illustrate the continued need for developing data collection skills with this population. Eighty-eight teachers with experience ranging from 1-5 years completed a series of open and forced-choice questions that required the rater to hypothesize the possible maintaining function of the student's behavior (e.g., attention or escape). Results indicated that, in general, teachers' across all levels taught struggled to accurately hypothesize the function of behavior. Novice special education teachers were more accurate on forced-choice questions and general education teachers evidenced greater accuracy on open-ended questions. Across all teachers, elementary and special educators yielded higher scores across all questions. Implications for accurate data collection during school-based consultation are discussed. (Contains 3 tables.)