Abstract
Child aggressive behavior is a growing research topic in several fields of knowledge. Nonetheless, there are few instruments in Brazil designed to assess such a construct. The aim of this study was to present a new instrument to assess aggressive behavior among children: The Peer Aggressive Behavior Scale (PAB-S). Two studies are presented. The first describes the items development procedures, as well as evidence of content validity. It also presents the procedures used to refine the instrument and initial evidence of validity based on the internal structure of the refined version of the PAB-S. The second study evaluates, in an independent sample, the goodness-of-fit of the refined version and compares them with those presented by the initial version. A sample of 974 children (52,3 % girls) aged between 7 and 13 years old, attending public and private schools from Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro, participated in the study. The results indicate that the PAB-S fits a one-dimensional instrument in both the initial (39 items) and the refined version (25 items). The results suggest evidence of content validity and validity based on the internal structure of the scale. Further studies are needed to gather evidence of validity based on external variables.
Aggressive behavior; Children; Scale; Psychometrics