title: Level validity of self-report whole-family measures.
abstract: This article introduces an approach to testing the level validity of family assessment instruments (i.e., whether a family instrument measures family functioning at the level of the system it purports to assess). Two parents and 2 adolescents in 69 families rated the warmth in each of their family relationships and in the family as a whole. Family members' ratings of whole-family warmth assessed family functioning not only at the family level (i.e., characteristics of the family as a whole) but also at the individual level of analysis (i.e., characteristics of family members as raters), indicating a lack of level validity. Evidence was provided for the level validity of a latent variable based on family members' ratings of whole-family warmth. The findings underscore the importance of assessing the level validity of individual ratings of whole-family functioning.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Family and Child Care Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. w.a.manders@hetnet.nl
authors.forename: Willeke A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Manders
authors.forename: William L
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.forename: Johan H L
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Oud
authors.forename: Ron H J
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Scholte
authors.forename: Jan M A M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Janssens
authors.forename: Eric E J
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: De Bruyn
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D011594:Psychometrics; D012647:Self-Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires