Development and Validation of an Early Adolescent Temperament Measure

Abstract

Two studies were employed to develop a self-report temperament measure for the early adolescent period. The measure was based on the work of Rothbart and colleagues with adults and focused on emotionality, reactivity, and self-regulation. In Study 1, 97 middle school students (SO girls and 47 boys), aged 11 to 14 years, completed the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire (EATQ). In addition, 93 parents reported on their adolescent's temperament. Analyses assessing scale reliability, dimensionality, and discriminant validity were conducted. Two of the EATQ's 14 scales were eliminated, and 2 were collapsed to form 1 scale; 92 of the original 168 items were retained after these analyses. The 11 final scales assessed fear, irritability, shyness, sadness, high-intensity pleasure, low-intensity pleasure, sensitivity, autonomic reactivity, motor activation, activity level, and attention. Alphas for the)) scales were high, and average convergence between parent report and adolescent report for the scales was .29. Three factors were identified in an analysis of the remaining 11 scale scores: negative emotion and somatic arousal, positive emotion and sensitivity, and high intensity pleasure or sensation seeking. In Study 2, participants were 64 boys and 64 girls, aged 11 to 14 years. Scale reliability and the factor structure of the modified adolescent scale were replicated in Study 2. In addition, eight scales from other measures were administered to assess convergent validity of the scales, and retests were conducted. Retest stability was high, and correlations with parallel scales averaged .50, indicating scale validity. Results indicate that the EATQ provides reliable and valid assessment of 1) dimensions of temperament for early adolescents.