title: Psychometric properties of family members' reports of parental physical aggression toward clinic-referred children.
abstract: This study examined (a) differences among mothers', fathers', and children's reports of parental physical aggression toward children; (b) the reliability and validity of family members' reports of aggression using confirmatory factor analysis; and (c) the discriminant validity of the constructs of mother-child and father-child aggression. Participants were 72 dual-parent families in which the parents were seeking clinical services for their children's (ages 7-9 years) conduct behavior problems. Each participant completed the parent-child version of the Conflict Tactics Scale (P-CTS). Results indicate that children reported lower levels of mother-child and father-child aggression than either mothers or fathers reported. Although the reliability (total systematic variance accounted for by observed variables) of family members' reports on the P-CTS ranged from moderate to high, convergent validity was generally low. The constructs of mother-child and father-child aggression were highly correlated but could be distinguished from each other when relationships among rater effects were considered.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Texas 77204, USA.
authors.forename: E N
authors.initials: EN
authors.lastname: Jouriles
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mehta
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: McDonald
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Francis
mesh_terms: D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005192:Family Health; D005219:Father-Child Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D015588:Observer Variation; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012647:Self-Assessment