Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Yol. 6, No. 3, 1977
The Measurement of Self Among Adolescents: An Overview Anne C. Petersen 1 Received February 15, 1977
This issue of the Journal o f Youth and Adolescence is devoted to the measurement of self-reports of adolescent feelings and behaviors. The idea for the issue grew out of a symposium at the 1976 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco. Some of the authors in this issue participated in that symposium, entitled "New Directions in Affective Measurement for School Settings." Educators and educational researchers typically conceptualize noncognitive outcomes or correlates of education in terms of academic self-concept, the closest link conceptually and empirically to achievement. One objective in organizing this symposium was to facilitate communication between those interested from the educational perspective and researchers from psychiatry and other social or behavioral sciences. The primary focus of these papers is on the measurement procedures or instruments. We have not included all of the current possibilities for measuring adolescents' self-views. All of the methods reported here are paper-and-pencil self-reports of the standard questionnaire type. Hence the stimuli and the nature of responses are specified in all of these papers. We have not included methods which afford greater flexibility or variety of response, such as interviews or projective techniques. Specified constructs or items and response options may or may not be relevant to an individual's private self-view (e.g., Shavelson et al., 1976). Furthermore, self-reports are known to be susceptible to bias related to social desirability (e.g., Crandall, 1973). On the other hand, a primary rationale for structuring questions and responses is that this mode of measurement is more I Director, Laboratory for the Study of Adolescence, Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center; Research Associate (Assistant Professoi), Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago. Received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Main research interests are biopsychosocial development in adolescence, especially for girls, and applications of statistical and psychometric methods to problems in longitudinal research. 201 9 1977 Plenum Publishing Corp., 227 West 17th Street, New Y o r k , N.Y. 10011. T o promote freer access to published material in the spirit of t h e 1 9 7 6 C o p y r i g h t Law, Plenum sells reprint articles f r o m all its Journals. This availability underlines the fact t h a t no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, In any f o r m or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, w i t h o u t w r i t t e n permission of the publisher. Shipment Is p r o m p t ; rate per article is $7.50.
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Petersen
amenable to examination of psychometric properties than are more subjective or open-ended techniques. In designing a new instrument, or in using one previously constructed, we must examine the extent to which the items are valid samples of the affects, behaviors, and so on that we are attempting to study. We generally validate a questionnaire on the basis of group responses, but we may also wish to examine its validity for individuals. A second common theme of the papers in this issue is the measurement of self-view among youth. While all of the procedures or instruments presented here can be generalized to other age groups (and indeed some have been), most of the authors are primarily interested in the issues of adolescence. Hence substantive concerns and results are presented as well. Diverse perspectives on human functioning are presented in this issue. And yet, as with the methodologies, the possible universe of theories is not covered. The conceptual frameworks within which the various methods are developed include mental health, self-concept or self-image, the affective (as opposed to cognitive) domain, and the domain of typical daily behaviors and feelings. Each of these areas is very broad and has been studied from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Many subsets of these areas also have been explored. For example, mental health has been conceptualized and measured in a variety of ways ranging from psychiatric symptoms to social effectiveness (e.g., Sells, 1968). Indeed, the general labels applied to various areas are not specific. For example, there are measures of mental health which others have called self-concept. Hence, we need to elaborate beyond these generally superficial and relatively uninformative labels to what in fact is being measured and why. These two characteristics of an instrument provide the major criteria for establishing the validity of the measurement (Cronbach and Meehl, 1955; Messick, 1975). And they remain essential to our evaluation of the usefulness of any procedure or instruments for our own particular needs. We must address a major question in considering the rationale for this issue. Why should we support the proliferation of instruments measuring selfreports? Is there not already an overabundance of such measures? One of the papers in this special issue (Anderson) does use an existing well-validated instrument to focus on a method of analyzing data. But the rest present new instruments (or, in Kifer's contribution, a method for developing a new instrument). Many critics of this area have decried this proliferation and yet have acknowledged that major problems occur with most instruments currently in existence (e.g., Crandall, 1973; Wylie, 1975). We feel that the instruments or procedures presented here are justified by both their relevance for the assessment of adolescents and their psychometric sophistication. The papers in this issue are roughly ordered according to focus on methodological relative to substantive contribution. As noted above, all are primarily methodological but some also present substantive results. In the first paper, "An Approach to the Construction of Affective Evaluation Instruments,"
Measurement of Self Among Adolescents
203
Kifer presents a systematic procedure for developing items in the affective (or personality) area. This method, developed by Fiske (1971), einsures that the construct to be measured is represented by items which systematically and exhaustively cover the domain. Anderson, in "Measuring Change in Academic Self-Concept Resulting from Curricular and Instructional Innovations," presents a method for developing or modifying an instrument so that it may adequately measure change over time. Petersen and Kellam, in "Measurement o f the Psychological Well-Being of Adolescents: The Psychometric Properties and Assessment Procedures of the How I Feel," present an assessment procedure and instrument designed to measure some aspects of mental health among adolescents. Gleser, Seligman, Winget, and Rauh also focus on the measurement of mental health among adolescents in their paper, "Adolescents View Their Mental Health." Offer, Ostrov, and Howard, in "The Self-Image o f Adolescents: A Study of Four Cultures," present cross-cultural comparisons of adolescents using the wellvalidated Offer Self-Image Questionnaire. Csikszentmihalyi, Larson, and Prescott take a radically new approach to studying adolescents in "The Ecology o f Adolescent Activity and Experience." Using a method o f random time sampling developed by Prescott (1976), they describe the behaviors and feelings o f a sample of adolescents over a one-week period. In the concluding article, "Methodological Considerations in Interpreting Research on Self-Concept," Shavelson, Burstein, and Keesling critique and discuss the papers in the context of the general issues regarding measurement of the self-view of adolescents. While these papers do not exhaust the current methods and theories for the measurement of adolescent experience, they present a sampling o f new ideas. Most are immediately applicable to other investigators' use. We also hope that they will serve to stimulate further advances in methodology and theory in this area.
REFERENCES Crandall, R. (1973). The measurement of self-esteem and related constructs. In Robinson, P., and Shaver, R. (eds.) Measures o f Social Psychological Attitudes, Institute for Social Research, Ann Arbor, Mich. Cronbach, L. J., and Meehl, P. E. (1955). Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychol. Bull. 52: 281-302. Fiske, D. W. (1971). Measuring the Concepts o f Personality, Aldine, Chicago. Messick, S. (1975). The standard problem: Meaning and values in measurement and evaluation. Am. Psychologist 30: 955-966. Prescott, S. (1976). Patterns of cognitive and affective states in a sample of professionals: The experiential time sampling approach. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington D.C. Sells, S. B. (ed.) (1968). The Definition and Measurement o f Mental Health, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Public Health Service, National Center for Health Statistics, Washington, D.C. Shavelson, R. J., Hubner, J. J., and Stanton, G. C. (1976). Self-concept: Validation of construct interpretations. Rev. Educ. Res. 46: 407-441. Wylie, R. C. (1974). The Self-Concept, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press (rev. ed., Vol. 1).
The Measurement of Self Among Adolescents: An Overview Anne C. Petersen 1 Received February 15, 1977
This issue of the Journal o f Youth and Adolescence is devoted to the measurement of self-reports of adolescent feelings and behaviors. The idea for the issue grew out of a symposium at the 1976 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco. Some of the authors in this issue participated in that symposium, entitled "New Directions in Affective Measurement for School Settings." Educators and educational researchers typically conceptualize noncognitive outcomes or correlates of education in terms of academic self-concept, the closest link conceptually and empirically to achievement. One objective in organizing this symposium was to facilitate communication between those interested from the educational perspective and researchers from psychiatry and other social or behavioral sciences. The primary focus of these papers is on the measurement procedures or instruments. We have not included all of the current possibilities for measuring adolescents' self-views. All of the methods reported here are paper-and-pencil self-reports of the standard questionnaire type. Hence the stimuli and the nature of responses are specified in all of these papers. We have not included methods which afford greater flexibility or variety of response, such as interviews or projective techniques. Specified constructs or items and response options may or may not be relevant to an individual's private self-view (e.g., Shavelson et al., 1976). Furthermore, self-reports are known to be susceptible to bias related to social desirability (e.g., Crandall, 1973). On the other hand, a primary rationale for structuring questions and responses is that this mode of measurement is more I Director, Laboratory for the Study of Adolescence, Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center; Research Associate (Assistant Professoi), Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago. Received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Main research interests are biopsychosocial development in adolescence, especially for girls, and applications of statistical and psychometric methods to problems in longitudinal research. 201 9 1977 Plenum Publishing Corp., 227 West 17th Street, New Y o r k , N.Y. 10011. T o promote freer access to published material in the spirit of t h e 1 9 7 6 C o p y r i g h t Law, Plenum sells reprint articles f r o m all its Journals. This availability underlines the fact t h a t no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, In any f o r m or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, w i t h o u t w r i t t e n permission of the publisher. Shipment Is p r o m p t ; rate per article is $7.50.
202
Petersen
amenable to examination of psychometric properties than are more subjective or open-ended techniques. In designing a new instrument, or in using one previously constructed, we must examine the extent to which the items are valid samples of the affects, behaviors, and so on that we are attempting to study. We generally validate a questionnaire on the basis of group responses, but we may also wish to examine its validity for individuals. A second common theme of the papers in this issue is the measurement of self-view among youth. While all of the procedures or instruments presented here can be generalized to other age groups (and indeed some have been), most of the authors are primarily interested in the issues of adolescence. Hence substantive concerns and results are presented as well. Diverse perspectives on human functioning are presented in this issue. And yet, as with the methodologies, the possible universe of theories is not covered. The conceptual frameworks within which the various methods are developed include mental health, self-concept or self-image, the affective (as opposed to cognitive) domain, and the domain of typical daily behaviors and feelings. Each of these areas is very broad and has been studied from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Many subsets of these areas also have been explored. For example, mental health has been conceptualized and measured in a variety of ways ranging from psychiatric symptoms to social effectiveness (e.g., Sells, 1968). Indeed, the general labels applied to various areas are not specific. For example, there are measures of mental health which others have called self-concept. Hence, we need to elaborate beyond these generally superficial and relatively uninformative labels to what in fact is being measured and why. These two characteristics of an instrument provide the major criteria for establishing the validity of the measurement (Cronbach and Meehl, 1955; Messick, 1975). And they remain essential to our evaluation of the usefulness of any procedure or instruments for our own particular needs. We must address a major question in considering the rationale for this issue. Why should we support the proliferation of instruments measuring selfreports? Is there not already an overabundance of such measures? One of the papers in this special issue (Anderson) does use an existing well-validated instrument to focus on a method of analyzing data. But the rest present new instruments (or, in Kifer's contribution, a method for developing a new instrument). Many critics of this area have decried this proliferation and yet have acknowledged that major problems occur with most instruments currently in existence (e.g., Crandall, 1973; Wylie, 1975). We feel that the instruments or procedures presented here are justified by both their relevance for the assessment of adolescents and their psychometric sophistication. The papers in this issue are roughly ordered according to focus on methodological relative to substantive contribution. As noted above, all are primarily methodological but some also present substantive results. In the first paper, "An Approach to the Construction of Affective Evaluation Instruments,"
Measurement of Self Among Adolescents
203
Kifer presents a systematic procedure for developing items in the affective (or personality) area. This method, developed by Fiske (1971), einsures that the construct to be measured is represented by items which systematically and exhaustively cover the domain. Anderson, in "Measuring Change in Academic Self-Concept Resulting from Curricular and Instructional Innovations," presents a method for developing or modifying an instrument so that it may adequately measure change over time. Petersen and Kellam, in "Measurement o f the Psychological Well-Being of Adolescents: The Psychometric Properties and Assessment Procedures of the How I Feel," present an assessment procedure and instrument designed to measure some aspects of mental health among adolescents. Gleser, Seligman, Winget, and Rauh also focus on the measurement of mental health among adolescents in their paper, "Adolescents View Their Mental Health." Offer, Ostrov, and Howard, in "The Self-Image o f Adolescents: A Study of Four Cultures," present cross-cultural comparisons of adolescents using the wellvalidated Offer Self-Image Questionnaire. Csikszentmihalyi, Larson, and Prescott take a radically new approach to studying adolescents in "The Ecology o f Adolescent Activity and Experience." Using a method o f random time sampling developed by Prescott (1976), they describe the behaviors and feelings o f a sample of adolescents over a one-week period. In the concluding article, "Methodological Considerations in Interpreting Research on Self-Concept," Shavelson, Burstein, and Keesling critique and discuss the papers in the context of the general issues regarding measurement of the self-view of adolescents. While these papers do not exhaust the current methods and theories for the measurement of adolescent experience, they present a sampling o f new ideas. Most are immediately applicable to other investigators' use. We also hope that they will serve to stimulate further advances in methodology and theory in this area.
REFERENCES Crandall, R. (1973). The measurement of self-esteem and related constructs. In Robinson, P., and Shaver, R. (eds.) Measures o f Social Psychological Attitudes, Institute for Social Research, Ann Arbor, Mich. Cronbach, L. J., and Meehl, P. E. (1955). Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychol. Bull. 52: 281-302. Fiske, D. W. (1971). Measuring the Concepts o f Personality, Aldine, Chicago. Messick, S. (1975). The standard problem: Meaning and values in measurement and evaluation. Am. Psychologist 30: 955-966. Prescott, S. (1976). Patterns of cognitive and affective states in a sample of professionals: The experiential time sampling approach. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington D.C. Sells, S. B. (ed.) (1968). The Definition and Measurement o f Mental Health, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Public Health Service, National Center for Health Statistics, Washington, D.C. Shavelson, R. J., Hubner, J. J., and Stanton, G. C. (1976). Self-concept: Validation of construct interpretations. Rev. Educ. Res. 46: 407-441. Wylie, R. C. (1974). The Self-Concept, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press (rev. ed., Vol. 1).
