Abstract:
Accurately identifying mental health needs of adolescents in juvenile justice settings is
crucial to ensure treatment needs are met (Baum et al., 2009; Grisso, 2005). One instrument that
can be used to identify mental health needs of adolescents is the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory – Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al, 1992), a measure widely used in
research and practice (Archer & Newsome, 2000). Ethical and legal guidelines for assessments
in juvenile justice settings require the use of tests with known psychometric properties, including
evidence supporting cultural fairness of scale scores. To date, most research investigating the
psychometric properties of MMPI-A scores in juvenile justice settings has been conducted using
exclusively male samples (Baum et al., 2009, Veltri et al., 2009) with only one study examining
differences in these properties across boys and girls (Handel et al., 2011). As such, the current
study used a sample of 244 (161 males, 83 females) adolescents court ordered to receive a
psychological evaluation to investigate two research aims. These included: 1) to provide
validation evidence for scores on MMPI-A Content scales for boys and girls and 2) to investigate
predictive bias by gender for MMPI-A Content scale scores. Generally, results from Pearson’s r
correlations provided evidence supporting the convergent and discriminant validity of MMPI-A
content scale scores in boys and girls (Convergent: r’s = .30 to -.57, p < .001; Discriminant: r’s <
.30, p < .001). Additionally, results of regression analyses examining gender as a moderator
demonstrated that gender did not significantly influence the relation between MMPI-A Content
scale scores and BASC-2 scores. Overall, these findings support the validity of scores on MMPIA content scales in boys and girls and provide evidence suggesting that predictions made by
MMPI-A content scale scores in juvenile justice settings may be culturally fair with respect to
gender.
