Development and factor analysis of a measure of youth attitudes toward guns and violence

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Abstract
Administered the Attitudes Toward Guns and Violence Questionnaire (AGVQ) to 1,619 students in Grades 3,5, 6, 7,9, 11, and 12 from four demographically diverse school systems. Fifty-two of the 61 items exhibited satisfactory part-whole correlation and correlation with a validity criterion. Factor analysis revealed four main factors: Aggressive Response to Shame, Comfort With Aggression, Excitement, and Power/Safety. The instrument was reduced to 23 items by deleting items with high cross-loadings. Construct validity was similar for the longer and shorter versions. Youth who self-reported owning a gun produced scores 1.5 SD higher than nonowners. Low scores were associated with a 1 in 125 chance of gun ownership, and high scores were associated with a 1 in 3 chance. Congruency coefficients indicated similar factor structure for the present sample and separate sample of 5th-, 7th- and 9th-grade students. These results indicate that e AGVQ is a reliable and valid measure of violence-related attitudes in young people.