Classifications strategies used by mandated reporters in judging incidents of child abuse

Abstract

Subjective judgments, of the severity of examples of physical child abuse were investigated using a multidimensional scaling procedure. Comparisons of severity between all possible pairs of 10 abusive acts and ratings of the importance of 13 aspects of child abuse were obtained from 69 respondents. These respondents were members of one of the following professional groups: elementary school teachers, child protection officers of the court, school social workers, and state services social workers. All four groups used a common dimension by which to judge child abuse; the elements influencing the rankings on this dimension appeared to be the degree of physical harm (potential or actual) to the child, the force of the action, and the social toleration of the action in context. The ordering of the exemplars by all groups was relatively consistent, indicating that they were using similar criteria in making their judgments. One group, the teachers, used an additional dimension that appears to reflect potential ...