Metric characteristics of Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents: A preliminary study

• Main Author: Ana Krevh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Slovenian Psychologists' Association 2007-07-01
• Series: Psihološka Obzorja
• Subjects: anxiety; children; adolescents; psychodiagnosis; test construction; metric characteristics
• Online Access: http://psiholoska-obzorja.si/arhiv_clanki/2007_2/krevh.pdf

The paper is exploring measurements of anxiety in youth and adolescence. It introduces a new scale for measuring anxiety in youth and adolescence (LAOM) and selected metric characteristics are being analysed. The scale was designed to measure general level of anxiety in school surroundings. The concept of anxiety and the evolvement of measures are highlighted and the theoretical base for construction of the new scale is presented. The psychometric analyses were based on a sample of 300 elementary school children of both genders. The structure of the first version of LAOM was analysed with component analysis and the relevant items were kept. The reliability of the second version of the scale in terms of its internal consistency proved to be sufficient (Cronbach α = ,89). The scale differed between groups with different levels of anxiety. Concurrent validity was verified through a high positive correlation with translated STAI –X2 scale (Lamovec, 1988). Another evidence in favour of construct validity of the LAOM was provided with important gender and age differences.