The goal of this study was to evaluate the validity of Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA), the technique used to analyze statement validity assessment (SVA), by discriminating between true and false statements obtained from children.
Elementary s...
The goal of this study was to evaluate the validity of Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA), the technique used to analyze statement validity assessment (SVA), by discriminating between true and false statements obtained from children.
Elementary school children were assigned into two groups, aggressors or victims, and asked to generate a true story based on an autobiographical experience that involved harmed (victim group, n=91) or harming others (aggressor group, n=98). After generating the true statement, they were asked to fabricate another story based on the first statement. For the false statements, the victim group was instructed to modify the story so that the aggressor would receive more punishment. These stories were blindly rated for each CBCA criteria, and the score compared between groups (aggressor/victim) and types of statement (true/false). Also individual variables of children, such as public self-consciousness, and intelligence were analyzed as factors which might possibly affect the CBCA results.
The analysis of the 14 selected CBCA criteria showed that 7 distinguished true statements from false independent of group (aggressive/victim). The 5th ('descriptions of interactions'), the 8th ('unusual details') and the 17th ('self-deprecation)' criteria discriminated between the two groups. The aggressive group showed higher scores in the 5th and 17th criteria, whereas the victim group showed higher score for the 8th criterion. In addition, we also found significant interactions between public self-consciousness and group for the 3th ('quantity of details') criteria and the 4th ('contextual embedding'). The children with high intelligence obtained high scores in the 4th ('contextual embedding') and 15th ('admitting lack of memory') criteria, regardless of group.
These results show that CBCA should not be applied automatically without considering the individual characteristics of the child. Other variables, such as gender and age that affected the application of CBCA criteria variables, as well as strategies for affective use of SVA, are also discussed.