NCJ Number
191082
Date Published
April 1999
Length
98 pages
Annotation
This document provides a compendium of approaches that have been used to assess youth violence.
Abstract
The instruments discussed can be used to measure the violence-related behavior of individual students, multiple classes of students, whole schools, and in some cases, entire school districts. They can be used to conduct an initial needs assessment of violence-related behavior and attitudes at a school so that administrators will be able to choose the violence prevention initiative that best suits the needs of their student population. Part A presents the key issues involved in the assessment of youth violence and various factors linked to violence. Some of the factors include the characteristics of the community and family, the school climate, substance involvement, the lack of engagement of youth in school activities, and weapon possession. It also lists component elements identified in various instruments. Teacher ratings, parent ratings, measures for school counselors, student self-reports, peer nominations, and school and community risk factors are some of them. This list can be used by researchers to develop new approaches or instruments that more thoroughly measure each construct of interest. Part B discusses the individual approaches or instruments identified in the literature that match as closely as possible the key issues identified by scientists and practitioners. These are organized in subsections based on the person who provides the information (parent, teacher, administrator, counselor, peer, self, or a combination). Some of the listed types of information describing the approaches or instruments are author, age groups, scales and subscales, scoring methods, and contact information. A preliminary overview is provided of the many instruments that measure youth crime, violence, and other antisocial attitudes and behaviors. There are dozens of other instruments that have not been included in this document. Appendix, references