Construction and Validation of a Scale to Assess Social Judgments Toward Sex Work from the Stereotype Content Model.

Sex workers (SW) are subject to social judgment and the associated attitudes, ranging from admiration to contempt. The presence of stereotypical attitudes toward SW is common and can be analyzed using the Stereotype Content Model (SCM), where the concepts of warmth and competence play a central role. The interweaving of both dimensions allows the identification of four emotions and corresponding political positions toward SW: admiration (non-interventionism), pity (abolitionism), contempt (prohibitionism), and fear (regulationism). From the SCM framework, this study offers the construction, validation and performance of a 25-item scale with a snowball sample of 1,543 participants residing in Spanish-speaking countries. The four-factor hypothesized model yielded adequate values. Internal consistency was sufficient on all factors, as was model-based reliability and convergent validity. The scale also showed measurement invariance between gender and age groups, suggesting that the measure is interpreted in a conceptually similar manner by respondents representing different genders or ages. Further analysis revealed that male participants scored significantly higher on admiration. Baby boomers showed less pity and contempt while Millennials showed more fear and less admiration. SW and those who know or work with SW showed less fear and pity and more admiration. The SCM and the process of developing social judgments offer us a way to understand the differences that underlie irreconcilable policy positions. Overcoming these differences requires mutual understanding from scientific frameworks instead of from ideological perspectives.

Q-Herilearn: Assessing heritage learning in digital environments. A mixed approach with factor and IRT models.

The assessment of heritage learning in digital environments lacks instruments that measure it with sufficient guarantees of accuracy, validity, and reliability. This study attempts to fill this gap by developing an instrument that has shown solid metric qualities. The process of design and calibration of a scale applied to 1,454 participants between 19 and 63 years of age is presented in this article. Exploratory factor analysis (Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling ESEM) and Item Response Theory models (Graded Response Model GRM) were used. Sufficient evidence of both reliability and validity based on content and internal structure was obtained. Invariance of scores as a function of gender and age of participants has also been demonstrated. The discrimination parameters of the items have been found to be high, and the test information curves have shown that the subscales measure with sufficient precision wide ranges of the respective latent variables. The instrument presents wide possibilities of application to various areas of Heritage Education (e.g., design of programs in HE, definition and planning of teaching objectives, evaluation of programs, etc., in virtual environments).

Detecting non-content-based response styles in survey data: An application of mixture factor analysis.

It is common for some participants in self-report surveys to be careless, inattentive, or lacking in effort. Data quality can be severely compromised by responses that are not based on item content (non-content-based [nCB] responses), leading to strong biases in the results of data analysis and misinterpretation of individual scores. In this study, we propose a specification of factor mixture analysis (FMA) to detect nCB responses. We investigated the usefulness and effectiveness of the FMA model in detecting nCB responses using both simulated data (Study 1) and real data (Study 2). In the first study, FMA showed reasonably robust sensitivity (.60 to .86) and excellent specificity (.96 to .99) on mixed-worded scales, suggesting that FMA had superior properties as a screening tool under different sample conditions. However, FMA performance was poor on scales composed of only positive items because of the difficulty in distinguishing acquiescent patterns from valid responses representing high levels of the trait. In Study 2 (real data), FMA detected a minority of cases (6.5%) with highly anomalous response patterns. Removing these cases resulted in a large increase in the fit of the unidimensional model and a substantial reduction in spurious multidimensionality.

The ephemeral nature of wording effects.

This article explores the analysis and interpretation of wording effects associated with using direct and reverse items in psychological assessment. Previous research using bifactor models has suggested a substantive nature of this effect. The present study uses mixture modeling to systematically examine an alternative hypothesis and surpass recognized limitations in the bifactor modeling approach. In preliminary supplemental Studies S1 and S2, we examined the presence of participants who exhibited wording effects and evaluated their impact on the dimensionality of Rosenberg's Self-Esteem and the Revised Life Orientation Test, confirming the ubiquity of wording effects in scales containing direct and reverse items. Then, after analyzing the data for both scales (n = 5,953), we found that, despite a significant association between wording factors (Study 1), a low proportion of participants simultaneously exhibited asymmetric responses in both scales (Study 2). Similarly, despite finding both longitudinal invariance and temporal stability of this effect in three waves (n = 3,712, Study 3), a small proportion of participants was identified with asymmetric responses over time (Study 4), reflected in lower transition parameters compared to the other patterns of profiles examined. In both cases, we illustrate how bifactor models capitalize on the responses of individuals who do not even exhibit wording effects, yielding spurious correlations suggesting a substantive nature of the wording effect. These findings support the notion of an ephemeral nature underlying wording effects. The discussion focuses on alternative hypotheses to understand these findings and emphasizes the utility of including reverse items in psychological assessment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A community living experience: Views of people with intellectual disability with extensive support needs, families, and professionals.

BACKGROUND: Despite the benefits of community living for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) and extensive support needs, they remain highly institutionalized. AIMS: To qualitatively analyze the perceptions of people with ID, including those with extensive support needs, professionals, and family members six months after the implementation of 11 community homes for 47 people in different regions of Spain METHODS: Thematic analysis of 77 individual interviews conducted with 13 people with ID, 30 professionals and 34 family members was performed using Nvivo12. RESULTS: Seven themes were found: (1) "the room as I like it", (2) "sometimes I don't obey", (3) "here I do a bit of everything", (4) "lots of people love me here", (5) "all thanks to them, who have helped me" (6) "I miss my mom", and (7) "I'm happy here". IMPLICATIONS: Transitioning into the community has shown a clear positive change in emotional well-being, opportunities to participate in activities or exercise control over one's life. Nevertheless, certain restrictions were still present in people's lives, which significantly limit their right to independent living. While many of these restrictions may disappear, professional practices typical of a medical model can be recreated in services located in the community.

Psychotropic drugs intake in people aging with intellectual disability: Prevalence and predictors.

BACKGROUND: Psychotropic medication is frequently administered to people with intellectual disability with mental health and/or behavioural problems, instead of other non-pharmacological interventions. This study describes the mental health and behavioural problems of people aging with intellectual disability, their psychotropic medication intake, and the factors contributing to a greater medication intake. METHOD: The sample consisted of 991 people with intellectual disability over 45 years. Descriptive statistics and multinominal logistic regression were carried out. RESULTS: Antipsychotics were the most used psychotropic drug. Older people with mild intellectual disability living in institutions and affected by mental health and behavioural problems were more likely to take larger amounts of psychotropic medication. CONCLUSIONS: Antipsychotics continue to be widely used by people with intellectual disability and mental and behavioural health problems, especially those in institutionalised settings. Future research should consider if medication intake could be reduced providing better supports in the community and non-pharmacological interventions.

Wording Effects in Assessment: Missing the Trees for the Forest.

This article examines wording effects when positive and negative worded items are included in psychological assessment. Wordings effects have been analyzed in the literature using statistical approaches based on population homogeneity assumptions (i.e. CFA, SEM), commonly adopting the bifactor model to separate trait variance and wording effects. This article presents an alternative approach by explicitly modeling population heterogeneity through a latent profile model, based on the idea that a subset of individuals exhibits wording effects. This kind of mixture model allows simultaneously to classify respondents, substantively characterize the differences in their response profiles, and report respondents' results in a comparable manner. Using the Rosenberg's self-esteem scale data from the LISS Panel (N = 6,762) in three studies, we identify a subgroup of participants who respond differentially according to item-wording and examine the impact of its responses in the estimation of the RSES measurement model, in terms of global and individual fit, under one-factor and bifactor models.The results of these analyses support the interpretation of wording effects in terms of a theoretically-proposed differential pattern of response to positively and negatively worded items, introducing a valuable tool for examining the artifactual or substantive interpretations of such wording effects.

Using Constrained Factor Mixture Analysis to Validate Mixed-Worded Psychological Scales: The Case of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale in the Dominican Republic.

A common method to collect information in the behavioral and health sciences is the self-report. However, the validity of self-reports is frequently threatened by response biases, particularly those associated with inconsistent responses to positively and negatively worded items of the same dimension, known as wording effects. Modeling strategies based on confirmatory factor analysis have traditionally been used to account for this response bias, but they have recently become under scrutiny due to their incorrect assumption of population homogeneity, inability to recover uncontaminated person scores or preserve structural validities, and their inherent ambiguity. Recently, two constrained factor mixture analysis (FMA) models have been proposed by Arias et al. (2020) and Steinmann et al. (2021) that can be used to identify and screen inconsistent response profiles. While these methods have shown promise, tests of their performance have been limited and they have not been directly compared. Thus the objective of the current study was to assess and compare their performance with data from the Dominican Republic of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (N = 632). Additionally, as this scale had not yet been studied for this population, another objective was to show how using constrained FMAs could help in the validation of mixed-worded scales. The results indicated that removing the inconsistent respondents identified by both FMAs (≈8%) reduced the amount of wording effects in the database. However, whereas the Steinmann et al. method only cleaned the data partially, the Arias et al. (2020) method was able to remove the great majority of the wording effects variance. Based on the screened data with the Arias et al. method, we evaluated the psychometric properties of the RSES for the Dominican population, and the results indicated that the scores had good validity and reliability properties. Given these findings, we recommend that researchers incorporate constrained FMAs into their toolbox and consider using them to screen out inconsistent respondents to mixed-worded scales.

Community Living, Intellectual Disability and Extensive Support Needs: A Rights-Based Approach to Assessment and Intervention.

People with intellectual disability (ID) and extensive support needs experience poorer quality of life than their peers whose disability is not as severe. Many of them live in residential settings that limit community participation and prevent them from exercising control over their lives. This work analyzes the extent to which professional practices are aimed at promoting the right to community living for people with ID and extensive support needs, as well as the rights that are particularly linked to it, such as the right to habilitation and rehabilitation and the right to privacy. A specific questionnaire was designed and administered to 729 adults with intellectual disability (M = 37.05; DT = 12.79) living in different settings (family home, residential facilities and group homes). Measurement and structural models were estimated using exploratory structural equation modeling. Results obtained reveal that people with extensive support needs receive less support in terms of guaranteeing their right to independent living and privacy, especially when they live in disability-related services. This study highlights the need to implement and monitor, using valid and reliable indicators, mesosystem strategies that guarantee the right to live and participate in the community, especially for individuals with ID and extensive support needs.

Validity of DSM-5 Oppositional Defiant Disorder Symptoms in Children with Intellectual Disability.

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is one of the most frequently diagnosed disorders in children with intellectual disabilities (ID). However, the high variability of results in prevalence studies suggests problems that should be investigated further, such as the possible overlap between some ODD symptoms and challenging behaviors that are especially prevalent in children with ID. The study aimed to investigate whether there are differences in the functioning of ODD symptoms between children with (n = 189) and without (n = 474) intellectual disabilities. To do so, we analyzed the extent to which parental ratings on DSM-5 ODD symptoms were metrically invariant between groups using models based on item response theory. The results indicated that two symptoms were non-invariant, with degrees of bias ranging from moderately high ("annoys others on purpose") to moderately low ("argues with adults"). Caution is advised in the use of these symptoms for the assessment and diagnosis of ODD in children with ID. Once the bias was controlled, the measurement model suggested prevalences of 8.4% (children with ID) and 3% (typically developing children). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

A Systematic Review of the Assessment of Support Needs in People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

An evaluation of support needs is fundamental to the provision of services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Services should be organized by considering the support that people need to improve their quality of life and enforce their rights as citizens. This systematic review is conducted to analyze the rigor and usefulness of the available standardized tools for assessing support needs, as well as the uses of their results. Several databases were consulted, including Web of Sciences, Scopus, PubMed, ProQuest Central, PsycInfo, ERIC, and CINAHL, and the 86 documents that met the review criteria were organized into four sections: (a) measurement tools, (b) descriptive/correlational studies, (c) predictive studies, and (d) interventions. The results showed that age, level of intellectual disability, adaptive behavior skills, the number and type of associated disabilities, and medical and behavioral needs affected the support needs of people with disabilities. Quality of life outcomes have been predicted by the individual's support needs, explaining a significant percentage of their variability. The findings are useful in guiding assessments and planning interventions. Further research should address the effectiveness of specific support strategies and the development of social policies and indicators for inclusion that involve assessing support needs.

A valid and reliable measure of nothing: disentangling the "Gavagai effect" in survey data.

BACKGROUND: In three recent studies, Maul demonstrated that sets of nonsense items can acquire excellent psychometric properties. Our aim was to find out why responses to nonsense items acquire a well-defined structure and high internal consistency. METHOD: We designed two studies. In the first study, 610 participants responded to eight items where the central term (intelligence) was replaced by the term "gavagai". In the second study, 548 participants responded to seven items whose content was totally invented. We asked the participants if they gave any meaning to "gavagai", and conducted analyses aimed at uncovering the most suitable structure for modeling responses to meaningless items. RESULTS: In the first study, 81.3% of the sample gave "gavagai" meaning, while 18.7% showed they had given it no interpretation. The factorial structures of the two groups were very different from each other. In the second study, the factorial model fitted almost perfectly. However, further analysis revealed that the structure of the data was not continuous but categorical with three unordered classes very similar to midpoint, disacquiescent, and random response styles. DISCUSSION: Apparently good psychometric properties on meaningless scales may be due to (a) respondents actually giving an interpretation to the item and responding according to that interpretation, or (b) a false positive because the statistical fit of the factorial model is not sensitive to cases where the actual structure of the data does not come from a common factor. In conclusion, the problem is not in factor analysis, but in the ability of the researcher to elaborate substantive hypotheses about the structure of the data, to employ analytical procedures congruent with those hypotheses, and to understand that a good fit in factor analysis does not have a univocal interpretation and is not sufficient evidence of either validity nor good psychometric properties.

Addressing Quality of Life of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability.

Despite the advances on the assessment of quality of life, this concept is barely studied and is riddled with important limitations for those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This article is aimed at validating a questionnaire to assess quality of life of children with ASD and intellectual disability (ID). Based on the KidsLife Scale, geared toward people with ID, the most reliable items for those with ASD were selected. Study participants were 420 persons, from 4 to 21 years old. Results indicated that the KidsLife-ASD Scale measured eight intercorrelated domains, had good reliability, and exhibited adequate evidences of validity. KidsLife-ASD emerges as a helpful tool to guide person-centered planning addressed at improving quality of life.

Differences in the support needs of children with developmental disabilities among groups of medical and behavioral needs.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Medical and behavioral needs are relevant in organizing and providing support strategies that improve the quality of life for children, along with their families. The present study aims to examine the impact of medical and behavioral needs on the need for support of children with disabilities. METHODS: Health and education professionals were interviewed using the Supports Intensity Scale-Children's version to estimate the support needs of 911 children and adolescents (5-16 years) with an intellectual disability, including 55.32% with an additional disability. For data analysis, a model for measuring support needs was specified, consisting of seven support needs factors and three method factors. In estimating the model, four groups of medical and behavioral needs were considered. The factor scores' means of the groups were compared through t-tests. RESULTS: Medical and behavioral needs had an impact on overall support needs. Differences were found in all support domains for medical needs. The greatest influence of behavioral needs was found in the Social and School participation areas but was indistinguishable between the mild and moderate levels of needs. CONCLUSIONS: Medical and behavioral needs greatly affect the need for support in a child's daily life, so they need to be considered a priority for support services. The importance of standardized assessments is emphasized to help develop support strategies.

Chronic Health Conditions in Aging Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities.

Life expectancy of people with intellectual disability (ID) has increased in recent decades. However, there is little evidence of whether these extra years of life are spent in good health. The aim of this study, conducted in Spain, is to obtain information about the prevalence of chronic health conditions in people with ID over the age of 44 and compare it with that of their peers without disability. Twenty health conditions were analyzed in 1040 people with ID and 12,172 people without ID through a study of their prevalence. The findings show that chronic constipation, urinary incontinence, thyroid disorders and obesity are the most prevalent chronic diseases among individuals with ID. In addition, this population group suffers these health conditions more frequently than older adults without ID. Detection and early intervention in these health conditions will improve adequate access to social health services and subsequent treatment of aging adults with ID.

Toward a Better "Person-Environment Fit" through Items Calibration of the SIS-C.

The Supports Intensity Scale-Children's Version (SIS-C) is the only available tool to assess extraordinary support needs for children and adolescents with intellectual disability. In past years, several works have proclaimed the need for its ongoing improvement as a measurement instrument. To contribute to this line of research, the goal of this work is to analyze the reliability of the SIS-C and its usefulness to distinguish between different levels of intensity of support needs. To address this, 814 children and adolescents with intellectual disability (M = 11.13 years; SD = 3.41) were assessed using the SIS-C Spanish version. Item response theory analyses were conducted to estimate latent scores and assess measurement quality along the support needs continuum. The SIS-C items showed good overall discrimination and information values, and none showed problems that required their removal or modification. However, all the scales composing the SIS-C showed problems in discerning high levels of intensity of support needs, especially for children and adolescents with severe/profound intellectual disability. This ceiling effect may be an obstacle for both research and practice involving the SIS-C. Implications for research and practice are discussed, and future lines of research for improving the SIS-C are provided.

A little garbage in, lots of garbage out: Assessing the impact of careless responding in personality survey data.

In self-report surveys, it is common that some individuals do not pay enough attention and effort to give valid responses. Our aim was to investigate the extent to which careless and insufficient effort responding contributes to the biasing of data. We performed analyses of dimensionality, internal structure, and data reliability of four personality scales (extroversion, conscientiousness, stability, and dispositional optimism) in two independent samples. In order to identify careless/insufficient effort (C/IE) respondents, we used a factor mixture model (FMM) designed to detect inconsistencies of response to items with different semantic polarity. The FMM identified between 4.4% and 10% of C/IE cases, depending on the scale and the sample examined. In the complete samples, all the theoretical models obtained an unacceptable fit, forcing the rejection of the starting hypothesis and making additional wording factors necessary. In the clean samples, all the theoretical models fitted satisfactorily, and the wording factors practically disappeared. Trait estimates in the clean samples were between 4.5% and 11.8% more accurate than in the complete samples. These results show that a limited amount of C/IE data can lead to a drastic deterioration in the fit of the theoretical model, produce large amounts of spurious variance, raise serious doubts about the dimensionality and internal structure of the data, and reduce the reliability with which the trait scores of all surveyed are estimated. Identifying and filtering C/IE responses is necessary to ensure the validity of research results.

Adapting a Measure of Quality of Life to Children with Down Syndrome for the Development of Evidence-based Interventions / Adaptación de una medida de calidad de vida a niños con síndrome de Down para el desarrollo de intervenciones basadas en la evidencia

Research has highlighted that no instrument with adequate evidence of validity and reliability currently exists to assess quality of life (QoL) in children with Down syndrome (DS). Important limitations have been pointed out when existingQoL instruments for children with intellectual disability are applied to this population. The main goal of this research is to adapt the KidsLife scale by selecting the most reliable and discriminant items for children and youth with DS. The sample was composed of 405 children with DS, aged between 4 and 21 years old, attending organizations that provide educational, social, and health services. The field-test version of the KidsLife scale was administered as an informantreport, completed by someone who knew the child well, and who had opportunities to observe him/her over long periods of time in different situations. Evidence of reliability and validity based on the internal structure of the scale is provided. According to the QoL model used to develop the scale, the solution showing the best fit to the data was the one with eight intercorrelated domains. Finally, the implications of the study, its limitations and suggestions for future researchare discussed

La investigación ha puesto de manifiesto que actualmente no existen instrumentos que presenten una adecuada evidencia de validez y fiabilidad para evaluar la calidad de vida (CV) de los niños con síndrome de Down (SD). De hecho, se encuentran importantes limitaciones cuando se aplican a esta población instrumentos de CV diseñados para personas con discapacidad intelectual. El principal objetivo de este trabajo es adaptar la escala KidsLife seleccionando los ítems más fiables y con mayor poder discriminativo para los jóvenes con SD. La muestra estaba formada por 405 jóvenes con SD, con edades comprendidas entre los 4 y los 21 años que asistían a organizaciones proveedoras de servicios educativos, sociales y de salud. La versión piloto de la escala KidsLife la contestó un informante que conocía al joven o a la joven bien, teniendo la oportunidad de observarle durante periodos prolongados de tiempo en diferentes situaciones. Se proporcionan pruebas de la fiabilidad y validez basadas en la estructura interna de la escala. De acuerdo con el modelo de CV utilizado para el desarrollo de la escala, la solución que mostró mejor ajuste a los datos fue la de ocho dimensiones correlacionadas. Finalmente, se discuten las implicaciones del estudio, sus limitaciones y se hacen sugerencias para la investigación futura

Is Small Still Beautiful for the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire? Novel Findings Using Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling.

During the present decade a large body of research has employed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to evaluate the factor structure of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) across multiple languages and cultures. However, because CFA can produce strongly biased estimations when the population cross-loadings differ meaningfully from zero, it may not be the most appropriate framework to model the SDQ responses. With this in mind, the current study sought to assess the factorial structure of the SDQ using the more flexible exploratory structural equation modeling approach. Using a large-scale Spanish sample composed of 67,253 youths aged between 10 and 18 years (M = 14.16, SD = 1.07), the results showed that CFA provided a severely biased and overly optimistic assessment of the underlying structure of the SDQ. In contrast, exploratory structural equation modeling revealed a generally weak factorial structure, including questionable indicators with large cross-loadings, multiple error correlations, and significant wording variance. A subsequent Monte Carlo study showed that sample sizes greater than 4,000 would be needed to adequately recover the SDQ loading structure. The findings from this study prevent recommending the SDQ as a screening tool and suggest caution when interpreting previous results in the literature based on CFA modeling.

Measuring support needs in children with motor disability: Validity and utility of the Supports Intensity Scale (SIS-C).

BACKGROUND: It is unknown whether the Supports Intensity Scale-Children's version (SIS-C) is valid and useful to assess support needs for children with motor and intellectual disabilities. AIMS: (a) To assess the structural validity of the SIS-C using factor analyses in a sample of children with motor disabilities; and (b) to analyze the SIS-C's reliability and its discriminative capacity in children with different levels of motor function. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: A cross-sectional design was used to assess 210 children (aged 5-16 years). Among them, 88% had an intellectual disability and 84% had cerebral palsy, with variations in mobility (Gross Motor Function Classification System; level V: 56.19%), handling of objects (Manual Ability Classification System; level V: 38.09%), and communicating (Communication Function Classification System; level V: 42.86%). OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: The model with seven support needs factors and three method factors showed the best fit. The support needs model was reliable and indicated high convergent validity. However, the SIS-C scores showed a strong ceiling effect in children with more significant limitations in gross and fine motor functions. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The seven-dimensional model of support needs could be replicated in children with motor disabilities. However, the usefulness of SIS-C is limited in discriminating between children with greater restrictions in mobility and handling of objects.