Reliability of the Jesness Inventory

Abstract

The Jesness Inventory (JI; Jesness, 1972) was developed primarily for use in the psychological assessment of juvenile delinquents. It consists of 10 scales designed to measure various personality characteristics and an Asocial Index used in the prediction of delinquency, the latter being derived from a discriminant function analysis of the JI scales. Despite extensive use, there has been little independent assessment of the JI reliability. Corrected split-half reliabilities based on 1,862 delinquent and nondelinquent boys and test-retest correlations over an 8-month period for 131 delinquents are presented in the JI manual; the only result given for the Asocial Index, however, is a test-retest coefficient over a 1-day period for 57 delinquents under conditions encouraging fake good responses. The only other published assessment of scale reliabilities has been by Shark and Handal (1977), who reported test-retest reliabilities similar in magnitude to those presented by Jesness for 62 delinquent and nondelinquent subjects. The present study examines the current reliability Jesness for 62 delinquent and nondelinquent subjects. The present study examines the current reliability of the JI with South Australian delinquents.