title: Unreliability and error in the military's "gold standard" measure of sexual harassment by education and gender.
abstract: The Department of Defense's "gold standard" sexual harassment measure, the Sexual Harassment Core Measure (SHCore), is based on an earlier measure that was developed primarily in college women. Furthermore, the SHCore requires a reading grade level of 9.1. This may be higher than some troops' reading abilities and could generate unreliable estimates of their sexual harassment experiences. Results from 108 male and 96 female soldiers showed that the SHCore's temporal stability and alternate-forms reliability was significantly worse (a) in soldiers without college experience compared to soldiers with college experience and (b) in men compared to women. For men without college experience, almost 80% of the temporal variance in SHCore scores was attributable to error. A plain language version of the SHCore had mixed effects on temporal stability depending on education and gender. The SHCore may be particularly ill suited for evaluating population trends of sexual harassment in military men without college experience.
authors.affiliation: Center for Chronic Disease Outcome Research, Department of Medicine, Minneapolis VA Medical Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55417, USA. Maureen.Murdoch@med.va.gov
authors.forename: Maureen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Murdoch
authors.forename: John B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Pryor
authors.forename: Joan M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Griffin
authors.forename: Diane Cowper
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Ripley
authors.forename: Gary D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Gackstetter
authors.forename: Melissa A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Polusny
authors.forename: James S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Hodges
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011932:Reading; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors; D017406:Sexual Harassment / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult