Life Event Scale (Newcomb, Huba, & Bentler, 1986)
- Populations: Children, Adolescents
- Age ranges: 12-18
- Languages: English
- Countries: United States
Items
Subscales
- Sexual Events, 7 Items
- Family and Parent Events, 6 Items
- Accident and Illness events, 4 Items
- Relocation Events, 3 Items
- Autonomy Events, 8 Items
- Deviance Events, 3 Items
- Distresful Events, 6 Items
Items by Subscale:
Sexual Events
- fell in love
- got or made pregnant
- got or gave venereal disease
- started dating regularly
- broke up with boy/girl friend
- had a gay experience
- lost virginity
Items taken from a summary table and may not represent the items as utilized with participants
Responses
Item responses not reported
Scoring
Responses were summed to create subscale scores.
Citations
- Newcomb, M. D., Huba, G. J., & Bentler, P. M. (1981). A multidimensional assessment of stressful life events among adolescents: Derivation and correlates. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 22(4), 400. https://doi.org/10.2307/2136681
- Newcomb, M. D., Huba, G. J., & Bentler, P. M.(1986). Life change events among adolescents: An empirical consideration of some methodological issues. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 174(5), 280-289. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005053-198605000-00004
Scoring breakdown
Measure development
- Significant design input from young people
- Cognitive interviews with young people
- Expert input
Validity
- Unknown: Face validity
- Green: Convergent validity
- Green: Construct validity
Reliability
- Red: Internal consistency
- Unknown: Test-retest
Ease of use
- Unknown: Readability
Definitions
Face validity: How well a measure appears to represent the construct it is supposed to be measuring.
Convergent validity: How well a measure correlates with other hypothetically-related measures.
Construct validity: The extent to which a measure reflects the construct it was designed to evaluate.
Internal consistency: The extent to which items in a scale capture aspects of the same construct.
Test-retest: The degree to which measurement scores are consistent over a short period of time (usually 2 weeks).
Readability: The ease with which a reader can understand the questionnaire items.
Key
- Green: Meets validation criteria
- Red: Does not meet validation criteria
- Unknown: Evidence not available
