Validation of the frequency of delinquent behavior scaling instrument (fdbsi) on nigerian in-school adolescents

Author: 
Daniel Olwasanmi Kumuyi, Olutope Ebenezer Akinnawo and Aderonke Akintola

A cross-sectional survey design was adopted to validate the Frequency of Delinquent Behavior Scaling Instrument (FDBSI) using adolescents from a secondary school in Lagos, Nigeria. A combined purposive and convenient sampling technique was used to select 261 participants made up of 93 males (35.6%) and 168 females (64.4%) from a selected secondary school in Kosofe Local Government in Lagos State Nigeria. The mean age was 15.57 ± 1.97. Participants responded to Frequency of Delinquent Behavior Scaling Instrument (FDBSI) and Self-Reported Delinquency (SRD) to determine concurrent validity. Observed internal consistency of FDBSI showed a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .75, a Spearman-Brown coefficient of .68 and Guttman Split-Half coefficient of .68. All items in the scale reported acceptable goodness-of-fit measures revealing corrected item-total correlations range of .12 to .79. Significant positive correlation was also observed between FDBSI and SRD revealing concurrent validity score of (r = .292, p= .000). Determined new norms for FDBSI were scores of 28.4 for male, and18.8 for female. FDBSI is observed to be gender sensitive and has acceptable psychometric properties for Nigerian adolescent population.

Paper No: 
3259