title: An alcohol attitude scale for teen-agers: a short form.
abstract: Lack of valid measurement remains a major obstacle in research and evaluation of health education programs. An alcohol attitude scale for teen-agers developed by the author was found to be a valid tool for researchers. However, because of the length of the scale, it was not a feasible device for practitioners in health education. In this study, a shorter form of the scale was developed. An alcohol attitude scale for teen-agers, composed of 54 Likert-type items, was reduced to produce a short form. Stepwise discriminant function analysis of the data identified 19 items that were the greatest discriminators between heavy drinking and nondrinking teen-agers. For the purpose of cross-validation, the short form of 19 items was administered to a representative sample of more than 1,250 teen-agers in several midwest school districts. The collected data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate statistical methods for providing evidence of validity and reliability of the short form. Results demonstrated highly significant levels of internal consistency and discriminating power of items and the total scale. The short form of the attitude scale for teen-agers was found to be a valid and reliable instrument for use as an alternative to the longer alcohol attitude scale from which it was derived.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Applied Health Science, Indiana University, Bloomington 47405.
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Torabi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D001294:Attitude to Health; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015146:Midwestern United States; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011594:Psychometrics; D012067:Religion; D012737:Sex Factors