Objective: Approximately 10% of school age youth are chronically teased or bullied, most commonly about their appearance. Chronic teasing threatens youths' well-being and frequently leads to long-term negative psychological sequelae. Despite its ubiquity, no psychometrically valid instrument exists that directly assesses teasing in children. This study reports the development and validity of the Physical Appearance Related Teasing Scale-Revised (PARTS-R).
Design: Methodological study - instrument development.
Population, Sample, Setting, Years: The sample was drawn from Little Rock, AR public and private schools and was comprised of 89 students aged 7-14 years (M=9.85), 37.1% male; and predominantly white (87.6%).
Concepts studied: Teasing and/or bullying, physical appearance, instrumentation
Methods: Two instruments, a demographic form and the PARTS-R, were used. The PARTS-R is an 18-item 5-point Likert-style scale with a 3.6 grade reading level. The items were initially derived from a scale designed for women with anorexia nervosa and reworked for saliency, clarity, and reading level, by an interdisciplinary panel of school experts. After Human Subjects approvals were obtained, participants completed the demographic form and the PARTS-R; they were re-tested one week later.
Psychometric analysis involved (a) item analysis, (b) principal components analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation, and (c) internal consistency reliability.
Findings: Three factors were identified and accounted for 57% of the variance--Forms of Harassment (eigenvalue 5.5, 39.6% of variance), Appearance-related Teasing, (eigenvalue 1.3, 9.4% of variance) and Physical Appearance Teasing (eigenvalue 1.1, 8% of variance), thus confirming the conceptual intent of the instrument. Cronbach's alphas for the factors were .83, .74, and .70, respectively. Adequate stability was also demonstrated with factor reliabilities of .84, .88, and .76 respectively.
Conclusions: Results indicate that the PARTS-R confirms the conceptual intent of the instrument and demonstrates adequate psychometric properties.
Implications: Because most teasing occurs "under the radar", and parents and school personnel are unaware of which students are targeted, this instrument can help identify those at risk. Further investigations using a larger sample size and more diverse subject pool will help ensure that the component structure is stable. Discriminant and convergent validity with measures of self-concept, psychosocial well-being, and school connectedness need to be determined.
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