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Citation |
McKay SL, Santos-Iglesias P, Byers ES, Cameron CA. Can. J. Behav. Sci. 2021; 53(4): 500-506. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2021, Canadian Psychological Association, Publisher Elsevier Publishing) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
unavailable |
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Abstract |
Dating violence is especially prevalent among adolescents, making it imperative that prevention programmes be effective. To evaluate programmes systematically, youths' perceptions and experiences should be comprehensively assessed. Currently, there are few psychometrically sound instruments available to assess programme changes in dating violence knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. The present study focused on the development of the Dating Violence Evaluation Questionnaire (DVEQ), a comprehensive measurement tool that assesses all three and is based on the goals and objectives of dating violence prevention programmes offered across one Eastern Canadian province. It involved 813 rural high school students, Grades 9-12, who completed the extensive questionnaire prior to participating in a prevention programme. The results provide initial evidence for the DVEQ's psychometric properties. It reliably assesses eight factors related to dating violence knowledge, five related to attitudes; and five factors related to behavioral skills. It had good internal consistency reliability, good overall fit of the Item Response Theory (IRT) model for all subscales, and items showed high levels of item discrimination and varying levels of item difficulty. The DVEQ also exhibited content validity and evidence of validity based on relations with other variables. As expected, girls and older students were more knowledgeable, had less accepting attitudes, and demonstrated greater behavioral skills than boys and students in lower grades. The DVEQ provides a comprehensive, reliable assessment tool for informing programme design, targeting specific deficits, potentially evaluating changes, and making standardized comparisons across programmes and populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) |
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Keywords |
Ability; High School Students; Intimate Partner Violence; Measurement; Prevention; Psychometrics; Questionnaires; School Based Intervention; Test Construction; Test Validity |