Analysis and Class Validation of a Measure of Parental values Perceived by early Adolescents: An Application of a Latent Class Model for Rankings

Abstract

A Parental Values scale, in which students ranked the top 5 of 10 items in terms of how important they perceived the items as being to their parents, was analyzed using a latent class ranking model. A model with three latent classes was considered adequate, based on the Bayesian information criterion and the interpretability of the results. The three classes were interpreted as consisting of students who perceive their parents as valuing personal happiness, those who perceive their parents as valuing concern for others, and those who perceive their parents as valuing academics and attending a good college. Some evidence as to the validity of the latent classes was obtained by comparing scores on a Parental Expectations scale; the scores were higher for the academic latent class as compared to the other two classes. The analysis suggests which items might be useful in a revised version of the scale.