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Adolescent Reputation Enhancement: Differentiating Delinquent, Nondelinquent, and At-risk Youths

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 1999

Annemaree Carroll
Affiliation:
Schonell Special Education Research Centre, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Stephen Houghton
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
John Hattie
Affiliation:
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Kevin Durkin
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
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Abstract

This research reports the findings of two studies conducted to measure and then investigate differences between delinquent, nondelinquent, and at-risk youths' orientations towards reputation enhancement. In the first study, concerning item selection and scale development, the factor structure and content validity of a potential Reputation Enhancement Scale were tested by examining the item responses of the scale completed by 230 high-school students. In the second study, the scale was validated by comparing the item responses of 80 delinquent, 90 at-risk, and 90 nondelinquent adolescents with the responses of the original students. The instrument was found to be reliable (alphas from .64 to .92), indicating that the factors are dependable across different samples, and the coefficients of congruence were sufficiently high to investigate meaningful group differences. Three second-order factors (Conforming Reputation, Nonconforming Reputation, Self-presentation) were derived from the 15 first-order factors. Although multivariate analyses revealed significant differences between the reputational orientations of delinquent, at-risk, and nondelinquent participants, the self-presentation second-order factor did not differentiate the three groups.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry

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