title: The Life Trajectory Interview for Youth (LTI-Y): method development and psychometric properties of an instrument to assess life-course models and achievement.
abstract: This paper describes the rationale, development and psychometric properties of the Life Trajectory Interview for Youth (LTI-Y), an instrument designed to assess cognitive models of the life course and life-course achievement. This method was developed over 13 months of pilot research, and applied with a population of 350 participants from the Great Smoky Mountain Study, a longitudinal epidemiological study of mental health in western North Carolina comprising 1420 youths (among them 350 Cherokee Native Americans). The LTI-Y is designed to address gaps in our understanding of the links between large-scale structural conditions and social processes and individual outcomes such as mental health. Scale consistency (n = 350) was good to high, whereas test-retest reliability in a limited sample (n = 18) was moderate to good, depending on the domain and dimension of data considered. Overall, psychometric properties indicate fairly stable and consistent life-course strategies and priorities. Although developed and piloted with youth from Western North Carolina, the methods described could be applied to any population of interest.
authors.affiliation: Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program, University of California - San Francisco & Berkeley, USA. rbrow11@emory.edu
authors.forename: Ryan A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Carol M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Worthman
authors.forename: E Jane
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Costello
authors.forename: Alaattin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Erkanli
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological / Q000379:methods*; D019369:Life; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results