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Understanding Abuse in Teen Dating Relationships through Concept Mapping
Teen dating violence (TDV) has surfaced as a significant public health issue. Prior research indicates disparities among adult and adolescent perceptions of relationship characteristics, however few studies consider teens’ perceptions of dating behavior described in their own words. Most adolescent dating research is analyzed through concepts developed by adults and applied across diverse geographic contexts. This study compared youth and adult conceptualizations of teen relationships across rural and urban locations to better inform national TDV prevention and intervention efforts.
Methods:
Concept mapping, a mixed-methods group conceptualization approach, was used to capture, compare and visually represent perspectives of youth ages 14-22 nationwide and adult researchers and practitioners. Participants described specific characteristics of teen dating relationships, individually sorted the ideas based on their relatedness (N=96), and rated each idea on perceived frequency (N=304) and desirability (N=264). Multivariate analyses were applied to the aggregated sort data, producing a concept map (relational framework of constructs) based on the combined participant perspectives.
Results:
Analysis results reveal nine constructs that describe teen dating relationships, as defined by youth and adult participants from disparate locations. Rating results from youth reveal overall agreement among participants in rural and urban environments on perceived frequency and desirability of the constructs.
Conclusions:
The results lend general support to the approaches used by researchers and practitioners among youth populations nationwide, and provide rationale for further research on ideas conceptualized differently among youth and adults. The authors conclude with concrete implications for programming and research agendas on adolescent dating relationships in different environmental contexts.
Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programsConduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health
Learning Objectives:
Identify areas of convergence and divergence in how youth and adults conceptualize aspects of teen dating relationships
Compare perspectives on teen dating of youth in rural and urban environments, through the lens of the constructs that emerge from the concept mapping process
Describe the implications of the study results for improving teen dating violence prevention and intervention programming nationwide
List future research questions on the topic of teen dating violence that emerge from this study
Keyword(s): Youth Violence, Adolescents
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been the lead project manager on this multi-year study intended to better understand the similarities and differences in how youth and adults conceptualize healthy and unhealthy aspects of teen dating relationships.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.