Score Metric Equivalence of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) Across Criminal Offenders in North America and the United Kingdom : A Critique of Cooke, Michie, Hart, and Clark (2005) and New Analyses
Assessment, Vol. 14, No. 1, 44-56 (2007)
http://asm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/1/44
Daniel M. Bolt ; Robert D. Hare ; Craig S. Neumann
"David Cooke and colleagues have published a series of item response theory (IRT) studies investigating the equivalence of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) for European versus North American (NA) male criminal offenders. They have consistently concluded that PCL-R scores are not equivalent, with European offenders receiving scores up to five points lower than those in NA when matched according to the latent trait. In this article, the authors critique the Cooke et al. analyses and demonstrate how their anchor item selection method is responsible for their final conclusions concerning the apparent lack of equivalence." [Sub required]