During the past two decades, the assessment of family variables has become a key component in an ever-expanding range of alcohol research. Regardless of objective, however, all such studies must ultimately select, revise or develop procedures for measuring key family constructs to be investigated. To strengthen the methodological and theoretical foundations of the field, our work of the past four years has focused on the refinement of a set of self-report and observational procedures for describing whole family, marital, parent-child and sibling relationships; and the implementation of a comprehensive multi-trait, multi-method (MTMM) investigation based on a sample of 200 intact families recruited via random-digit dialing procedures. The current proposal involves the completion and consolidation of these efforts, as well as a three year follow-up of this sample in order to evaluate the external (predictive) structure of our family assessment methods. These project objectives can be subsumed under two specific aims: 1. To Evaluate The Internal Structure Of Family Assessment Methods The issues that comprise this aim focus on the dimensionality, reliability, and cross-method correspondence of our family report and observational procedures, as well as the development of preliminary norms for each major instrument. The sample on which these analyses will be conducted will be complete by the end of the current grant year (07/31/95). 2. To Evaluate The External (Predictive) Structure Of Family Assessment Methods Having determined the number and nature of dimensions captured by report and observational methods and the degree to which there is convergent and discriminant validity for primary family variables, our efforts will be directed toward assessing the relationship between family influences and four adolescent outcomes: alcohol abuse, alcohol expectancies, and externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. Two assessments of these relationships will be undertaken, one involving the current sample of 200 intact families, and one involving a three year follow-up of this sample, the latter aimed at assessing the prospective relations between family influences and adolescent outcomes and evaluating family-to-child vs child-to-family effect models.
| Jacob, T; Moser, R P; Windle, M et al. (2000) A new measure of parenting practices involving preadolescent- and adolescent-aged children. Behav Modif 24:611-34 |
