Differential Item Functioning in Reports of Delinquent Behavior Between Black and White Youth: Evidence of Measurement Bias in Self-Reports of Arrest in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study.

ABSTRACT: Youth self-reports are a mainstay of delinquency assessment; however, making valid inferences about delinquency using these assessments requires equivalent measurement across groups of theoretical interest. We examined whether a brief 10-item delinquency measure exhibited measurement invariance across non-Hispanic White (n = 6,064) and Black (n = 1,666) youth (ages 10-11 years old) in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development^sm Study (ABCD Study®). We detected differential item functioning (DIF) in two items. Black youth were more likely to report being arrested or picked up by police than White youth with the same score on the latent delinquency trait. Although multiple covariates (income, urgency, and callous-unemotional traits) reduced mean-level difference in

SUBMITTER: Brislin SJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11897996 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature