Measurement invariance of a Posttraumatic Stress Disorder symptoms measure (PCL-5) in college student and Amazon's mechanical TURK samples.

Objective: College student and Amazon's Mechanical TURK (MTURK) samples are regularly utilized in trauma research. Recent literature, however, has criticized these samples for not being generalizable to the general U.S.

Assessment of cross-cultural measurement invariance of the NIH toolbox fluid cognition measures between Jamaicans and African-Americans.

The NIH Toolbox Cognitive Battery (NIHTB-CB) was developed as a common-metric, computerized cognitive screener for research. Although extensively normed and validated in Americans of different ethnicities, there is little data on how generalizable such results would be when used outside of the United States. The objective of this study was to assess measurement invariance (MI) of the NIHTB-CB across Jamaican and African-American samples and determine appropriateness of comparisons across groups.

Social Emotional Learning Competencies in Belize Children: Psychometric Validation Through Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling.

In the nation of Belize, and in particular the south side of Belize City, the main metropolitan area of the nation, significant economic disparities have led to child and adolescent exposure to high rates of violent crime, gang activity, unsafe neighborhoods, sexual, and physical violence. Problems associated with poor Social-Emotional Character Development are especially prevalent among boys. Consequently, valid culture-relevant measures are required that identify problematic behavior for policy-based intervention and evaluation of educational programs designed to ameliorate this problem.

Positive youth development: An experimental trial with unattached adolescents.

Adolescents who are unemployed and do not attend school or other education face a variety of short- and long-term challenges ranging from economic instability to increased drug and alcohol abuse to loss of quality adjusted life years. Intervention programs that reinforce positive youth behaviors may provide more effective solutions to adolescent challenges than programs that attempt to curb maladaptive behaviors. We conducted a longitudinal randomized trial of a residential positive youth development program including a six-month job internship with youth in Jamaica (N = 785, 59.