title: Identifying victims of peer aggression from early to middle childhood: analysis of cross-informant data for concordance, estimation of relational adjustment, prevalence of victimization, and characteristics of identified victims.
abstract: Two studies were conducted to investigate cross-informant measures of children's peer victimization. In Study 1, self- and peer reports of victimization were compared for 197 children from Kindergarten (M age = 5.73) to Grade 4. Before Grade 2, peer reports were less reliable than self-reports and were poor estimators of relational adjustment. In Study 2, single- versus multiple-informant (self, peer, teacher, parent) victimization measures were compared for 392 children across grades 2 (M age = 8.73) to 4. Results indicated that (a) data from the four informants were reliable and increasingly concordant over time, (b) no single-informant measure proved to be the best predictor of relational adjustment, and (c) a multi-informant composite measure yielded better estimates of relational adjustment than any single-informant measure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family and Human Development, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 872502, Tempe, Arizona 85287-2502, USA. Gary.Ladd@asu.edu
authors.forename: Gary W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Ladd
authors.forename: Becky
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kochenderfer-Ladd
mesh_terms: D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D011594:Psychometrics; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012917:Social Adjustment