Dissertation
The power and utility of latent growth modeling applied to longitudinal data for assessing the developmental synchrony of offending and victimization
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
08/2009
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000006121
Abstract
In this dissertation I describe and empirically illustrate how a powerful data-analytic technique--Latent Growth Modeling (LGM)--can be used by empirical researchers who are interested in detection and analysis of change in longitudinal data. In doing so, I provide insight into the application of LGM to real empirical data--the National Youth Survey--to address the issue of co-development of offending and victimization at the individual level. Throughout the dissertation, I examine 1) whether there is co-development of offending and victimization over time, and 2) whether temporal co-development of offending and victimization varies across different sub-groups--gender groups and statistically identified classes of individuals--boys and girls--with distinct offending-victimization trajectories. The results of this dissertation clearly show that offending and victimization do not evolve independently; rather, their developmental trajectories are related to one another across gender groups and across statistically identified classes of boys and girls with qualitatively different offending-victimization paths. The results of my analyses indicate that for all latent classes of boys and girls, with one exception, if offending escalates with time, the victimization escalates as well; whereas, if deviant behavior declines with time, victimization declines too, and this relationship, in most cases, is stronger for boys. There was one group of girls for which a decline in the level of offending was statistically associated with an increase in the level of victimization.
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Details
- Title
- The power and utility of latent growth modeling applied to longitudinal data for assessing the developmental synchrony of offending and victimization
- Creators
- Arina Gertseva
- Contributors
- Jennifer Schwartz (Chair)CLAYTON MOSHER (Committee Member)James Jr. F. Short (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Sociology
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 208
- Identifiers
- 99901055121001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation