title: Assessing attitudes and behaviors of high-risk adolescents: an evaluation of the self-report method.
abstract: This study evaluated the self-report method in the assessment of attitudes and behaviors. Forty-two problem youth from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds were surveyed. In addition, their parents were surveyed and school and police data were collected. Five self-report factors were compared against parental report factors and police and school records. Significant relationships were found only for self-report factors that contained more positively oriented items. Self-report factors that contained items inquiring directly into high-risk behaviors were not significantly associated with parental report factors or school and police data. The implications of these findings are discussed.
authors.affiliation: University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, Las Vegas 89102, USA.
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D012309:Risk-Taking; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires