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Attachment the construct : a construct validity study of parent-adolescent attachment measures

University of British Columbia

A dearth of research evaluating the psychometric properties of parentchild attachment measures has raised questions about the validity of scores when these self-report instruments are administered. The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of the scores produced by two parentadolescent attachment measures on a sample of 200 adolescents grades eight through twelve who volunteered to take part in the project. The scores obtained from the 200 adolescents on the parent-child attachment questionnaires were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis of the measurement models delineated by the authors of the scales. Structural equations modeling in LISREL was used to address the invariance of the factor structures for each attachment scale across the sex groupings. When comparing the correlation coefficients within and between the score from the IPPA, PAQ, RCMAS, and SDQ-II, the study generally supported the convergent and discriminant validity of the two attachment measures. However, results from the current sample failed to provide support for the factor structure of the IPPA and the PAQ, and the invariance of the measurement models across female and male participants. Taken together, results from the current study suggest that school psychologists or counsellors can use the total scores of the parent forms of the IPPA and PAQ in group or individual assessment as initial indicators of parent-child attachment and felt security. However, as with all assessments, the results should be interpreted in the context of information gained from other methods including interviews, observations, and self-reports measuring other constructs.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-07-09

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/10561

School Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace