Validation and Development of a Second-Order Model for Banditry Exposure Measurement Scale (BES)

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is prevalent in conflict-affected settings. Yet, there is limited knowledge about the risk factors that influence men's use of IPVAW in conflict-affected settings. This paper adopts a transdisciplinary perspective to understand how experiences hypothesized to increase men's use of IPVAW relate to each other and to men's use of IPVAW. The findings may help researchers and interventionists to better select and target interventions for IPVAW in conflict-affected settings. We used baseline data from the Tushinde Ujeuri project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Men with at least partial data for the variables of interest were included in the analysis (n = 2080). We estimated a structural equation model that explored how five constructs - interpersonal violence, mental health, socioeconomic adversity, gender inequitable attitudes, and conflict violence - influenced men's self-reported past-year use of physical and/or sexual IPVAW. The model had acceptable fit (χ2 = 1576.574, p = 0.000; RMSEA = 0.041; CLI = 0.882; SRMR = 0.055). There was a statistically significant path from interpersonal violence to IPVAW (β = 0.875; OR = 2.40). Interpersonal violence also was linked to gender inequitable attitudes (β = 0.364), which were linked to increased use of IPVAW (β = 0.180; OR = 1.20). Moreover, interpersonal violence was linked to trauma symptoms (β = 0.331), which were linked to increased use of IPVAW (β = 0.238; OR = 1.27). Use of IPVAW decreased as conflict exposures increased (β=-0.036; OR = 0.96), and there was no path from socioeconomic adversity to IPVAW. Our findings suggest interpersonal violence exposures, trauma symptoms, and gender inequitable attitudes are all risk factors for the use of IPVAW in a conflict-affected setting. While continuing to focus on gender inequitable attitudes and norms, interventionists should also consider addressing men's experiences of victimization and mental wellbeing. Doing so can help to improve trauma symptoms and may hold promise to reduce IPVAW in conflict-affected settings.

BackgroundWhile the conditions in emergency humanitarian and conflict-affected settings often result in significant sex work economies, there is limited information on the social and structural conditions of sex work in these settings, and the impacts on HIV/STI prevention and access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services for sex workers. Our objective was to comprehensively review existing evidence on HIV/STI prevention and access to SRH services for sex workers in conflict-affected settings globally.MethodsWe conducted a comprehensive review of all peer review (both epidemiological and qualitative) and grey literature published in the last 15 years (2000–2015), focusing on 1) HIV/STI vulnerability or prevention, and/or 2) access to SRH services for sex workers in conflict-affected settings. Five databases were searched, using combinations of sex work, conflict/mobility, HIV/STI, and SRH service terms. Relevant peer-reviewed and grey literature were also hand-searched, and key papers were cross-referenced for additional material.ResultsFive hundred fifty one records were screened and 416 records reviewed. Of 33 records describing HIV/STI prevention and/or access to SRH services among sex workers in conflict-affected settings, 24 were from sub-Saharan Africa; 18 studies described the results of primary research (13 quantitative, 3 qualitative, 2 mixed-methods) and 15 were non-primary research (e.g., commentaries, policy reports, programmatic manuals). Available evidence indicated that within conflict-affected settings, SWs’ capacity to engage in HIV/STI prevention and access SRH services is severely undermined by social and structural determinants including widespread violence and human rights violations, the collapse of livelihoods and traditional social structures, high levels of displacement, and difficulties accessing already scant health services due to stigma, discrimination and criminalization.Discussion/ConclusionsThis review identified significant gaps in HIV/STI and SRH research, policy, and programming for conflict-affected sex workers, highlighting a critical gap in the humanitarian response. Sex worker-informed policies and interventions to promote HIV/STI prevention and access to HIV and SRH services using a rights-based approach are recommended, and further research on the degree to which conflict-affected sex workers are accessing HIV/STI and SRH services is recommended.A paradigm shift from the behavioural and biomedical approach to a human rights-based approach to HIV/STI prevention and SRH is strongly recommended.

Youth as a category that informs international interventions in conflict-affected settings has gained currency in the past decade. This article traces the rising rhetoric of youth in UN Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) discourse and demonstrates how changes in its dominant representations have implications beyond the matter of semantics. Drawing on post-structuralist traditions, the article highlights how the DDR discourse delineates problems through particular framings that call forth certain solutions, which in turn reinforce the very (mis)understandings that underlie the interventions. A case study from the Central African Republic illustrates how the hegemonic representation of youth-as-troublemakers in UN documents, together with a compelling narrative that naturalized the link between youth, unemployment and violence, made possible and conferred legitimacy to the proliferation of projects with an overwhelming economic focus. The article discusses how the resource landscape, such as opportunities to unlock earmarked funding, incentivizes the reproduction of certain constructions of youth that align with today’s policy panic around violent extremism. In so doing, it puts into question the instrumental approach towards discourse by pointing to surprising ways in which discourses become appropriated by both international peacebuilders and the ‘subjects’ of these interventions.

Members from the Monash Gender, Peace and Security Centre have offered their analysis on a range of topics included in Australia's second National Action Plan on Women Peace and Security. Topics include: Feminist credentials in the new NAP Australia, monitoring and evaluation, women's participation in peace processes, sexual and gender-based violence in fragile and conflict-affected settings, countering and preventing violent extremism, inclusive economies, climate change, humanitarian action, stabilisation and disaster management, health emergencies, young women, and children.

Building resilience to violent extremism has featured in preventing violent extremism efforts for over a decade. Validated and standardized cross-cultural measures can help identify protective capacities and vulnerabilities toward violent extremism for young people. Because drivers for violent extremism are multi-factorial, a measure of resilience cannot be used to predict who will and will not commit acts of terror. Instead, its purpose is to track the multiple forms of capital available to youth at risk of adopting violence to resolve ideological, religious and political grievances, and to use this data to inform interventions that increase young people’s capacity to resist violent extremism’s push and pull forces. In this study, we developed such a measure, using data from 200 Australian and 275 Canadian participants aged eighteen to thirty years old. Following exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, a fourteen-item measure emerged consisting of five factors: cultural identity and connectedness; bridging capital; linking capital; violence-related behaviors, and violence-related beliefs. The Building Resilience against Violent Extremism (BRAVE) measure was found to have good internal reliability (α = .76), correlating in expected directions with related measures. The BRAVE shows promise for helping understand young people’s resilience to violent extremism.

Social participation plays a key role in the rehabilitation process, improving mental health, reducing isolation, and enhancing quality of life. Despite its importance, existing tools for assessing social participation in pediatric cancer patients are limited in comprehensiveness and specificity. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of a Social Participation Scale for Pediatric Cancer Patients (SPS-PC). Items were created after an extensive literature review and evaluated through expert consultation and a pilot study. A convenience sampling approach was employed to recruit 420 pediatric cancer patients from pediatric departments of three tertiary grade-A hospitals in Zhengzhou for psychometric testing of the scale. Item selection was based on item analysis, exploratory factor analysis was conducted to extract factors, and confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess structural validity. The final version of the SPS-PC includes 16 items across four dimensions: school participation, family participation, peer participation, and health management participation. The scale demonstrated excellent content and construct validity, with high internal consistency (Cronbach's α=0.900) and strong reliability (test-retest reliability=0.820). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed a robust four-factor structure. The SPS-PC is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing social participation in pediatric cancer patients. The scale's comprehensive approach makes it an essential tool for clinical practice and research in pediatric oncology, contributing to the social reintegration of these children.

Civilians worldwide are exposed to traumatic events as a result of mass violence, often in the context of conflict-affected settings. These individuals are often forcibly displaced and suffer extreme loss and violence. In most cases, they are likely to remain in conflict-affected and/or developing country settings that are characterized by limited resources and various competing priorities. The mental-health consequences of conflict have a far-reaching impact on multiple domains of life and community. In the past, mental health assistance to conflict-affected populations focused primarily on providing specialized mental health services to individuals with psychiatric disorders. Recently, however, there is growing acknowledgement that such interventions alone cannot promote full recovery and rehabilitation of traumatized populations and the war-torn societies in which they live. Current understanding of needs in the aftermath of trauma can provide a framework for promoting the psychosocial recovery and rehabilitation of conflict-affected populations.

Objective: This article reports the initial validation of the Human Rights Lens in Social Work (HRLSW) scale, a tool designed to measure a social worker’s ability to see individual and social problems as resulting from human rights violations. The purpose of the research was to gather evidence regarding the validity of this multidimensional measure of a new construct, i.e., human rights lens. Method: Data from a convenience sample of 1,014 licensed clinical social workers were collected by electronic survey, and the sample was split to conduct discrete exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The exploratory factor analysis was performed on half of the sample (n = 507) to establish the underlying factor structure of the construct; the other half of the sample (n = 507) underwent a confirmatory factor analysis to examine the subsample’s psychometric properties. Results: A respecified model using only one error covariance fit the data very well. All fit indices were within their critical values (χ2/df ratio = 1.5; CFI =.99; TLI = .99; RMSEA = .03; SRMR = .03). Thus, factor analysis confirms a two-factor, 11-item model for the HRLSW scale, consisting of two subscales, clients seen as experiencing rights violations, and social problems seen as rights violations. Conclusions: This scale is a useful tool for educators, researchers, and practitioners who want to practice—or promote the practice of—social work as a human rights profession.

This article reports on the development, adaptation, and validation of the Wellbeing Holistic Assessment for Teachers (WHAT) tool with a sample of 1,659 Salvadoran teachers. El Salvador is a conflict-affected country marked by high levels of gang-related violence, which interacts with education and directly affects the wellbeing of teachers. Having a contextually grounded and validated tool is imperative to further our understanding of educator wellbeing in El Salvador and other conflict-affected settings, as it enables us to generate evidence that informs policies and interventions. In this article, we describe how we reviewed and selected the measures that comprise the WHAT tool, followed by an initial conceptualization of teacher wellbeing and a description of the experiences and challenges teachers in El Salvador are facing. We describe our process for translating and adapting the selected measures to the Salvadoran context, which included conducting cognitive interviews. The results from our exploratory factor analysis provide construct validity evidence for the internal structure of the individual measures used. The exploratory factor analysis that included all the items for all the measures confirmed that each scale is indeed measuring a different construct. The results from a confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a good model fit. The process of adapting the tool and the results of our psychometric analysis provide evidence of the tool's validity, based on the content of the items in the tool, the internal structure, and its relationship to other variables.

Why do some pastoralists join bandit groups in Nigeria? This conundrum is yet to be explored in the emerging scholarly literature on pastoral banditry in Nigeria's troubled northwest region. Whereas the upsurge in pastoralist‐related banditry has been predominantly explicated with the theoretical frameworks of ungoverned spaces and relative deprivation, the role of structural violence in some pastoralists' decision to become bandits has not received sufficient scholarly attention. Drawing on the analytical framework of structural violence first advanced by the Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, I contend that some pastoralists take to the composite crime of banditry as a consequence of the inegalitarian distribution of resources and power. Pastoralists resorting to banditry in the northwest region can therefore be considered as a rebellious response, albeit misguided, to the structural violence of everyday life―precisely, poverty and repression―in the Nigerian state that precludes them from meeting their basic human needs. To reverse the mayhem and to heal the broken communities in the banditry‐affected northern states in Nigeria, I argue that federal and state governments should not solely rely on a killing approach fixated on military warfare―or the surveillance of forests and remote areas―but must address the structural factors that nurture alienation amongst some pastoralists.

Identifying the factor structure of the Mother-to-Infant Bonding Scale for post-partum women and examining its consistency during pregnancy.

Background Data-driven decision-making (DDDM) has gained significant attention as a powerful tool for enhancing student outcomes. However, existing frameworks for evaluating DDDM often miss the link between data, pedagogical issues and ethics, which are essential for a full understanding of DDDM and for the ethical use of data in educational practice. Purpose This study aims to develop and validate a comprehensive self-efficacy scale for assessing teachers’ DDDM abilities. Grounded in social cognitive theory and educational data literacy frameworks, a six-factor model is proposed, encompassing pedagogical problem identification, data collection, data management, data analysis, data comprehension and interpretation, and data applications (including data ethics). Method The scale, which was theoretically grounded in the extant literature, was further developed through interviews with teachers, expert reviews, and pilot testing. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on 477 Chinese university teacher responses to assess construct validity and reliability. Findings The scale demonstrated strong construct validity and reliability. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the six-factor model. The scale exhibited high internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha values exceeding 0.9 for all dimensions. Conclusion This validated scale has the potential to contribute to a better understanding of teachers’ data-driven decision-making self-efficacy and to inform future professional development initiatives. This study highlights the importance of integrating pedagogical and ethical aspects into DDDM frameworks, providing a comprehensive tool for the assessment of teachers’ self-efficacy in data-driven decision-making.

Outbreaks of major infectious diseases represent a tremendous threat to people's health, safety and property, yet little is known about the competence of front-line caregivers in such situations. To construct a model for evaluating the competency of front-line nursing staff during major infectious disease outbreaks and to test the model's reliability and validity. This was a cross-sectional study that took place between November and December 2021, in Chinese hospitals. The model was constructed through literature reviews, descriptive qualitative research, the Delphi method and the analytic hierarchy process. To evaluate the model's validity and reliability, 550 front-line nurses were selected to complete a questionnaire survey, and six experts were invited to conduct a content validity evaluation. Cronbach's α coefficient was used to test the model's reliability, while an exploratory factor analysis was used to measure the structural validity of the model. The model included 57 items. The Cronbach's α coefficient of the model was 0.983, and the content validity index was 0.958. Six common factors were produced by exploratory factor analysis. The cumulative variance contribution rate was 66.718%. After discussion, the original four dimensions were maintained. The model for evaluating the competency of front-line nursing staff during an outbreak of major infectious diseases has strong reliability and validity and can be used as a tool to assess the competency level of front-line nursing staff. This model can provide a useful reference for care managers to accurately evaluate, train and select caregivers during an epidemic.

Health literacy profoundly influences individuals' health development. As pivotal figures in shaping young children's well-being and delivering health education in kindergartens, kindergarten teachers are essential. Yet, assessing their health literacy remains challenging due to a scarcity of evaluation tools. Based on existing research, the initial questionnaire was developed through interviews, summaries, and reviews. A total of N = 120 (M age = 27.19, SD = 6.75, 94.2% female) kindergarten teachers participated in item analysis and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). N = 642 (M age = 28.12, SD = 5.77, 89.7% female) kindergarten teachers were involved in confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and reliability analysis. The questionnaire on the health literacy of kindergarten teachers consists of 30 items in four dimensions: health concept, health behavior, health ability, and health knowledge. In the EFA, the cumulative variance contribution rate reached 61.220%. The CFA indicators satisfied the fit criteria, indicating a well-fitted model (χ2/df = 1.945, CFI = 0.956, TLI = 0.952, SRMR = 0.034, RMSEA = 0.038). The reliability analysis indicated that Cronbach's α, McDonald's ω, and split-half reliability all exceeded 0.8. The Health Literacy Questionnaire for kindergarten teachers, with its strong reliability and validity, serves as a valuable assessment tool for this group's health literacy.

This study introduces a new scale of willingness to communicate in a second language (L2 WTC) in digital and non-digital EFL contexts. The psychometric testing of the revised L2 WTC (L2 WTC-R) was undertaken with 114 Indonesian EFL students by means of exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The results yielded an 11-item scale composed of three factors (L2 WTC inside the classroom, L2 WTC outside the classroom, and L2 WTC in the context of informal digital learning of English [IDLE]), with strong reliability and validity evidences. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was subsequently administered for a new sample (215 Indonesian EFL students), confirming the three-factor model that emerged from EFA. These results not only validate the existing L2 WTC scale but also expand its scale into digital settings, which will enable future research to consider another domain of L2 WTC (the IDLE context). From a real-world perspective, this can serve as a useful instrument for practitioners to gauge and foster L2 WTC levels in digital and non-digital contexts.