Infant development scale: validity evidence based on internal structure

• Grant number: 14/15300-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: January 19, 2015
• End date: June 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Fundamentals and Assessments in Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Lúcia Cavalcanti de Albuquerque Williams
• Grantee: Nahara Rodrigues Laterza Lopes
• Supervisor: Anne Marie Germaine Fontaine
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidade do Porto (UP), Portugal
• Associated to the scholarship: 12/25234-1 - ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA: DEVELOPMENT OF AN INSTRUMENT AND EVALUATION OF A PREVENTIVE COURSE FOR HEALTH PROFESSIONALS, BP.DR

Abstract

Abusive head trauma (AHT) is a type of physical abuse against children consisting of violently shaking a baby, and it may result in serious consequences for child development. In Brazil, there are few studies on this type of child abuse. Additionally there is a lack of validation studies in the literature in general involving instruments that assess knowledge on AHT. This research project aims to continue the Ph.D. study of the author, which intends to develop a scale in order to measure knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of parents and caregivers about AHT. Thus, this study aims to investigate the validity evidence of the scale based on the internal structure and relations with external variables by means of a research internship at the University of Porto, Portugal, with Prof. Dr. Anne Marie Fontaine, recognized expert in statistical analysis applied to psychology. The planned activities will involve: specific supervisions with the teacher and his staff; realization of exploratory factor analysis and correlation analysis between the scale scores and external variables; participation in courses in University of Porto, especially at the course entitled Structures and Dynamics of Labor Research II; carrying out bibliographic research; visit the existing institutions in the region of Porto acting in serving victims of maltreatment or working with psychological testing and participation in 9th BASCAN Congress (the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Congress). Four products are expected from this experience: 1) submission of a paper on the investigation of the validity evidence based on internal structure of the scale; 2) Submission of an article about the validity evidence based on relations with external variables; 3) paper presentation on 9th BASPCAN Congress and 4) participation in conferences in Brazil, disseminating the research data with contributions from the stage. (AU)