Acta Colombiana de Psicología (Feb 2017)

Attitudes Scale Towards Potential Targets of Bullying: Elaboration and Evidence of Validity and Reliability

  • Mardelides da Silva Lima,
  • Rildésia Silva Veloso Gouveia,
  • Ana Karla Silva Soares,
  • Rafaella de Carvalho Rodrigues Araújo,
  • Maria Gabriela Costa Ribeiro,
  • Tátila Rayane de Sampaio Brito,
  • Valdiney Veloso Gouveia

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 20, no. 1
pp. 242 – 253

Abstract

Read online

The present article aimed at describing the elaboration of a measurement of attitudes towards potential targets of bullying, gathering evidence of its factorial validity and internal consistency. Two studies were performed with 800 secondary school students whose mean age was 15 years old, who answered the Attitudes Scale towards Potential Targets of Bullying (ASTPB)and some demographic questions. In Study 1 (n = 230) the discriminant power of the scale items was verified, and after performing an exploratory factor analysis two components were identified (appearance and gender issues and social exposure),with Cronbach’s alpha (α) of 0.81 and 0.70, respectively. In Study 2 (n = 570) a confirmatory factor analysis was performed (Maximum Likelihood), confirming the two-factor structure of the scale (αfactor I= 0.80 and αfactor II = 0.65; CR = 0.80 and 0.64, respectively). Moreover, evidence was also gathered of factorial invariance of this measure in groups of women and men. In conclusion this is a parsimonious measurement with evidences of validity and reliability, suggesting its adequacy for use when the goal is to evaluate attitudes towards potential targets of bullying.

Keywords