an examination of the factor structure of the psychopathy checklist

y Hu and Bentler (1999) for an adequate fitting model. Their absolute fit index, the
RMSEA, was considered adequate. Sevecke et al. (2009) classified this model as
unacceptable among their particular sample, however, they concluded based on their
results that the three-factor model is the best model of the three primary factor models.
The slight discrepancy between the apparent goodness of fit of the three-factor
model in the current study in comparison to Sevecke et al.’s (2009) examination of the
PCL:YV’s factor structure deserves further explanation. First, in contrast to the latter
researchers’ sample, all the youth in the current study had at least one adjudicated
violent offence. In fact, roughly one-third of Sevecke and colleagues sample did not
have a violent offence conviction making their sample likely more heterogeneous in
terms of offending history. Additionally, in comparison to the present study, Sevecke et
al.’s (2009) sample consisted of German female youth. Although this difference in
sample composition may serve as a potential explanation for the minor disparity
between our results, perhaps a more reasonable speculation is that our finding that the
three-factor model is the best model for use with this particular sample may be
generalizable outside of North American female youth. Undoubtedly, however, further
cross-cultural research among a sample composed of female youth who have a violent
offending history and who are displaying roughly equivalent mean psychopathy scores
as the present sample is required to establish this generalization. In fact, the
discrepancy between our findings highlights the need to investigate the factor structure
of the PCL:YV among diverse samples. It would appear that only the use of multiple
samples from different settings will allow gender by ethnicity interactions to be clearly
explicated. Notably, however, the sample used in this study is a valid and important
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