Assessment of anxiety in adolescents: concurrent and factorial validities of the Trait Anxiety scale of Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the concurrent and factorial validities of the Trait Anxiety scale of Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children when given to 157 adolescents. Using a randomly selected subsample of 88, correlations between total and factor scores on the children's inventory and on the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale were statistically significant but lower than those reported previously for children. Principal component analyses of these adolescents' scores on the Trait Anxiety scale of the children's inventory replicated previous factor analytic studies of this inventory administered to children. Total scores for these adolescents on the children's and adults' Form Y inventories were only moderately correlated. rs between the two sets of factor scores were low. These findings raise the question of whether the Trait Anxiety scale of the children's inventory when completed by adolescents measures the same construct of trait anxiety as the adult inventory. Researchers must evaluate further the validity of the children's inventory Trait Anxiety scale when administered to adolescents.