Term of Award
Summer 2024
Degree Name
Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.)
Document Type and Release Option
Dissertation (open access)
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Department
Department of Psychology
Committee Chair
Jeff Klibert
Committee Member 1
Thresa Yancey
Committee Member 2
Dorthie Cross
Abstract
Although parent-report scales for general behavioral difficulties and aggression (e.g., verbal and physical aggression) exist, there are currently no measures assessing sexual behaviors in this context. Commonly, parent-report measures provide a few items relevant to behavioral aggression, and items encompassing sexually aggressive behaviors are frequently vague and non-specific in the actions being committed by the adolescent. The primary purpose of this project was to develop a comprehensive and multifaceted parent-report measure for aggressive behavior in adolescents. Three separate studies were conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties of the measure. Exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to investigate the factorial structure of the measure. While a stable factor structure to organize different domains of aggression was not obtained, results did reveal robust factor structure for sexually aggressive behavior items through a unidimensional solution. Moreover, validity and reliability statistics were high for this unidimensional factor structure, indicating the items held together and represented the latent construct well. Some unique gender and rurality differences in parent-reports of sexually aggressive behaviors were detected. Notably, via parent report, adolescent boys engage in more sexually aggressive behaviors compared to adolescent females, while adolescent from rural areas engage in higher levels of sexually aggressive behaviors compared to adolescents from non-rural areas. The formation of this sexually aggressive behaviors assessment likely serves best a screening tool. With further study, the measure has the potential to inform treatment options for behavioral health and forensic professionals working with adolescents.
Recommended Citation
Fallon, Katherine, "Development of a Measure Assessing Adolescent Aggression: The Aggressive Behavior Risk Assessment- Adolescent- Parent Report (ABRA-A-PR)" (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2533.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/2533
Research Data and Supplementary Material
Yes
