Qualitative Analysis of Adolescent Dating Conflict and Development of the Coping Strategy of Dating Conflict Inventory

• Main Authors: Teng-Yueh Huang, 黃登月
• Other Authors: Wen-Chung Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/01194749146521344972

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 心理學研究所 === 91 === Qualitative Analysis of Adolescent Dating Conflict and Development of the Coping Strategy of Dating Conflict Inventory Abstract Conflict in adolescent dating behavior represents a key point that can accumulate dangerous factor and transfer into a harmful action model in the future intimate relationship. Because relatively little research aims at conflicts in adolescent dating behavior, the purposes of this research were to investigate the causes and coping strategies of adolescent dating conflict and to develop a coping strategy of dating conflict inventory that is suitable for Taiwan adolescent population. There are two studies in this research. In the first study, semi-structured interview was conducted to identify causes and coping strategies of adolescent dating conflict. Items were thus generated. In the second study, pretest and item analysis were carried out and a formal inventory was developed. In addition, its psychometric properties were investigated. The Rasch analysis was conducted to calibrate item and person parameters and to screen misfitting items and persons. A short version of the inventory was developed. Subjects in the first study were 22 youngsters (12 boys and 10 girls), aging from 13 to 23. They were sampled from northern, middle, or southern Taiwan. The interviewees, recommended by teachers and guidance directors, were limited to those had dating experience in the past year to prevent vague or twisted memory. The interviews were conducted and tape-recorded in school consulting rooms. The results show that the causes of dating conflict were mainly thought conflict, poor communication, emotional problems, irrational dominance, and love shifting. The coping strategies of dating conflict contained rational and irrational strategies. Rational strategies consisted of begging pardon, showing respect, avoiding conflict, looking for support and shifting the topics. Irrational strategies consisted of verbal aggression, mental hurt, and physical (sexual) violence. These strategies were used to generate items for the inventory. The pretest sample of the second study (34 boys and 40 girls) were mainly drawn from junior and senior high school students in Kaohsiung and Pingtung areas. They all had dating experiences in the past year. The formal test samples consisted of two groups. One consisted of 45 adolescents (27boys and 18 girls) who had serious dating conflicts and were recommended by the school guidance directors, and the other consisted of 360 ordinary students (155 boys and 205 girls). There were two item formats in the rational and irrational strategies of dating conflict inventory: I-Active and He/She-Active, which led to four scales. Differential item functioning between males and females was assessed. Ten items were deleted because of huge differential item functioning. The final versions of the Rational Coping Strategy of Dating Conflict consisted of 10 items and the Irrational Coping Strategy of Dating Conflict consisted of 62 items. The person reliabilities of the four scales ranged from .80 to .89. Four-week test-retest reliabilities ranged from .80 to .86. Concurrent validities of these four scales ranged from .70 to .97. The correlations between “I-Active” and “He/She-Active” scales ranged from .96 to 1.00. The correlations between rational and irrational scale were almost zero. The short version of the scales consisted of 10 rational strategy items and 15 irrational strategy items, whose reliability ranging from .77 to .79. They were very highly correlated to the long version (ranging from .94 to 1.00). The recommended group scored higher than the normal group in the irrational scale. On average, the odds of the recommended group were approximately 9 to 10 times of those of the normal group. In contrast, the normal group scored higher than the recommended group in the rational scale. The odds of the normal group were approximately 2 to 4 times of those of the recommended group. Keywords: adolescent, coping strategy of dating conflict, reliability, validity, inventory, item response theory, Rasch model, differential item functioning