The research projects described in this TTURC involve the assessment of tobacco-related psychosocial variables, such as cultural values relevant to smoking, exposure to pro- ant anti-tobacco media, and perceived social norms. Unfortunately, validated measures of these constructs often are not available. The Measurement Core will assist the other projects by researching, developing, and validating measures of tobacco-related psychosocial variables. The Measurement Core will perform the following functions: - Conduct literature reviews to identify existing measures of tobacco- related psychosocial variables. - Develop new measures of tobacco-related psychosocial variables, such as exposure to pro- and anti-tobacco media, perceived social norms about smoking, and cultural values relevant to smoking. - Help the investigators adapt existing measures for use with early adolescents and/or respondents with limited reading proficiency. - Assess the comparability of measures across cultures and languages. - Pilot test the existing and new measures in samples of adolescents from the target populations. - Conduct reliability and validity studies of these measures, including internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, construct validity, content validity, concurrent validity, predictive validity, and discriminant validity. - Monitor the research literature to stay current with new published measures of tobacco-related psychosocial variables. - Provide access to students and trainees to learn about measurement issues. - Maintain a library of publishes measures, existing datasets, and documentation. - Identify and investigate other measurement issues as they arise in our ongoing research. - Provide consultation and guidance to investigators in the use of qualitative and ethnographic research methods.
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