NCJ Number
130337
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 18 Issue: 2 Dated: (June 1991) Pages: 166-179
Date Published
1991
Length
14 pages
Annotation
The Psychological Screening Inventory (PSI) was evaluated regarding its validity and usefulness for assessment of adolescents referred by a juvenile court and other agencies.
Abstract
Behavioral measures and ratings on the Life History Checklist (LHC) were obtained from court records and psychological evaluations of a group of 351 male and 185 female adolescent cases from the Psychology Department of Palm Beach County Juvenile and Family Services in West Palm Beach, Florida and compared with measures for a group of 174 nonoffender students. The PSI discriminated major emotional problems, offenses, peer relations, and cooperativeness. It related to several measures of the LHC. Although the findings were statistically significant the mean correlations and differences were small and had limited practical application. Furthermore, classification accuracy was poor. In a multitrait-multimatrix analysis, the PSI demonstrated poor discriminant validity from unrelated measures and method variance. In contrast, it showed good discriminant validity from the demographic variables of race, age, socioeconomic status, and intelligence. Because of its limitations, the PSI is not recommended for screening of juvenile offenders. 3 tables and 11 references (Author abstract modified)