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MEASUREMENT INSTRUMENTS IN CHILD ABUSE RESEARCH

NCJ Number
142815
Author(s)
M A Straus
Date Published
1993
Length
12 pages
Annotation
Data were obtained from research studies of child abuse and neglect to assess the extent to which instruments meeting minimal psychometric standards were used in child abuse research and to examine the variables measured.
Abstract
A total of 714 articles were reviewed, and a measurement instrument was defined as a procedure combining values of three or more items or indicators to gauge an underlying continuum which could only be partly measured by a single item. Instruments were classified into one of four categories: maltreatment, effects of maltreatment, risk factors or causes of maltreatment, and other. Of the 714 articles, 137 articles used 83 different instruments, with 24 instruments used in two or more studies; 81 percent of the articles used no instrument to measure a variable. The least frequently measured phenomenon was child abuse itself; 41 percent of the instruments were intended to identify risk factors or causes of maltreatment, and 38 percent measured hypothesized effects of abuse. The findings suggest that research on child abuse has made minimal use of multi-indicator measures with known reliability and validity. Reasons for the limited use of standard measures are noted, and steps to improve measurement are discussed. Data on the instruments used between 1979 and 1989 are appended. 11 references and 1 figure

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