an examination of the factor structure of the psychopathy checklist

More documents

Recommendations

Info

did have evidence of instrumental behaviour. See Appendix E for detailed descriptions of these categories and coding instructions. 2.2.4 Demographics, Offender History, and Offense Characteristics Additional information including basic demographics (i.e., date of birth, ethnicity), offender history (i.e., age at first contact with police, age at first charged offense), and offence characteristics (e.g., victim gender, victim age, victim-offender relationship, weapon use and type, substance use at the time of the offence, and severity of violence) was also coded. For further descriptions of the manner in which variables were coded, see Appendix E. 2.3 Procedure All files were coded on the PCL:YV by the primary researcher at YFPS in Kelowna, British Columbia, and the PER research team in Burnaby, British Columbia. The primary researcher’s coding scheme, which includes the ARF and Woodworth and Porter’s (2002) instrumental-reactive coding scheme (see Appendix E), was completed by the primary researcher and a secondary coder who was a volunteer undergraduate honours student at UBC Okanagan in Kelowna, British Columbia. The PCL:YV was completed based on file review by the author and by YFPS research assistants, all of whom were trained according to YFPS standards of administration. All relevant information from the clients’ files was used up until the time of the assessment for the index offence, which typically occurred within a few months of the offence. If no assessment was available, information up until the time of the index offence was utilized to make PCL:YV ratings. Structured interviews were not possible as all of the files used in the current study were closed, and the clients were no longer 33
eceiving services from YFPS. Although the PCL:YV is designed to be completed based on an extensive file review, and a semi-structured interview, scores from file review only are acceptable when conducting an archival study (Forth, 2005) and there is considerable evidence to support its validity based on file review alone (Forth et al., 2003). Further, research among adults (e.g., Bolt et al., 2004; Grann, Langstroem, Tengstroem, & Stalenheim, 1998; Wong, 1988) has consistently shown that assessments based solely on the offender’s file information are highly similar to ratings based on both file review and an interview and are appropriate provided that there is sufficient file information. As the psychometric properties of the PCL:YV so closely resemble the PCL – R, we expected psychopathy to be reliably measured on a file-only basis. The primary rater (i.e., the author) was blind to the instrumentality coding while completing the PCL:YV. The author was trained in using Woodworth and Porter’s (2002) coding scheme by Dr. Michael Woodworth. She then trained the secondary rater on how to use this coding scheme as well as the ARF. Both the primary researcher and the volunteer were kept blind to the offenders’ PCL:YV scores during the coding process. Analyses were completed using the Predictive Analytics SoftWare (PASW) version 18, using a Type I error rate of .05. Using the PASW add-on, Amos, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to examine the construct validity of the two-factor, three-factor, and four-facet models. To examine how the best-fitting PCL:YV factor model is related to instrumental aggression, structural equation modeling (SEM) was the method selected. SEM provides a comprehensive and flexible approach to data analysis (Hoyle & Smith, 1994). SEM improves statistical estimation by 34
Page 1 and 2: AN EXAMINATION OF THE FACTOR STRUCT
Page 3 and 4: Preface Ethics approval for this re
Page 5 and 6: 3 Results .........................
Page 7 and 8: List of Tables Table 1 Confirmatory
Page 9 and 10: Acknowledgements I owe my deepest g
Page 11 and 12: To my family and friends, Thank you
Page 13 and 14: among female youth populations, the
Page 15 and 16: Third, it has been suggested that t
Page 17 and 18: only a small proportion of conduct-
Page 19 and 20: irresponsible, and antisocial tende
Page 21 and 22: A long line of research has demonst
Page 23 and 24: females. When a model is considered
Page 25 and 26: to do with whether the measure is w
Page 27 and 28: Understanding the factor structure
Page 29 and 30: (Leschied et al., 2001; Moretti, Ca
Page 31 and 32: psychopathic offenders were signifi
Page 33 and 34: instrumental aggression. However, w
Page 35 and 36: Given the relationships between the
Page 37 and 38: associated with self-report will be
Page 39 and 40: 1.4.1 Hypotheses The current thesis
Page 41 and 42: ecords, school records, medical rec
Page 43: 2.2.3 Instrumental-Reactive Coding
Page 47 and 48: 3 Results 3.1 Coding Reliability In
Page 49 and 50: This was followed by acquaintance v
Page 51 and 52: Figure 2. Percentage of cases by se
Page 53 and 54: index that adjusts for model comple
Page 55 and 56: Item 1 Item 2 Item 4 Item 5 Item 6
Page 57 and 58: (1-19), 38.7% scored in the moderat
Page 59 and 60: offences, 28.6% were for revenge or
Page 61 and 62: association between the dichotomous
Page 63 and 64: from the original dataset. In other
Page 65 and 66: in instrumental aggression was acco
Page 67 and 68: etween the dichotomous psychopathy
Page 69 and 70: psychopath based on a cut score of
Page 71 and 72: the three-factor model was unable t
Page 73 and 74: sample since violent offenders are
Page 75 and 76: who also concluded that antisocial
Page 77 and 78: they are less likely to use reactiv
Page 79 and 80: more strongly related to instrument
Page 81 and 82: Pickard, 2007; Barry, Pickard, & An
Page 83 and 84: measure of psychopathy may be limit
Page 85 and 86: Further, based on the relatively lo
Page 87 and 88: score. Although this is a valid mea
Page 89 and 90: Having access to a large sample, we
Page 91 and 92: demonstrated, the utility of differ
Page 93 and 94: malleable youth sample may facilita
Page 95 and 96:
Berkowitz, L. (1993). Aggression: I
Page 97 and 98:
Gender differences in mental health
Page 99 and 100:
Edens, J. F., Skeem, J. L., Cruise,
Page 101 and 102:
Frick, P. J., Cornell, A. H., Barry
Page 103 and 104:
Hare, R. D., & Neumann, C. S. (2006
Page 105 and 106:
Jones, S., Cauffman, E., Miller, J.
Page 107 and 108:
Lynam, D. R. (1996). Early identifi
Page 109 and 110:
Murrie, D. C., Cornell, D. G., Kapl
Page 111 and 112:
of the official and self-reported h
Page 113 and 114:
Salekin, R. T., Rogers, R., & Sewel
Page 115 and 116:
Stockdale, K. C., Olver, M. E., Won
Page 117 and 118:
Vitale, J. E., & Newman, J. P. (200
Page 119 and 120:
Xie, H., Cairns, R. B., & Cairns, B
Page 121 and 122:
Appendix B: Factor Models Table A1
Page 123 and 124:
112
Page 125 and 126:
Appendix E: Coding Scheme and Guide
Page 127 and 128:
PART A: OFFENCE CHARACTERISTICS AND
Page 129 and 130:
PART C: WOODWORTH & PORTER`S INSTRU
show all

an examination of the factor structure of the psychopathy checklist

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?