NCJ Number
110366
Journal
Criminology Volume: 24 Issue: 3 Dated: (August 1986) Pages: 473-488
Date Published
1986
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This paper examines issues in using self-reports of involvement in violent acts to measure a latent construct (propensity toward violence).
Abstract
Three issues are addressed. First, the meaning of latent variables and the factor-analytic approach to modeling latent constructs are discussed. Second, the comparability of self-report violence measures across race and sex groups is assessed. Third, the consequences are discussed of estimating factor analytic models on pooled samples of data where the measurement component of the model does not apply equally for different subsets of the sample. (Publisher abstract)