Assessing the Reliability and Validity of Student Self-Reports of Campus Violence

Responses of adolescents who failed reliability and/or validity checks on a school climate and violence questionnaire (n = 109) were compared with a randomly selected matched group of students (n = 109) who answered consistently and accurately. Results indicated significant differences between the two groups on indexes of school violence victimization, perceived danger at school, peer connections, and course grades. The most critical finding was that students with invalid and/or unreliable responses reported significantly more violence victimizations than the comparison group. The need for research addressing the accuracy of school violence self-reports and concerns about the accuracy of existing school violence prevalence information are discussed.