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Assessing sexual behavior with self-report is essential to research on a variety of health topics, including pregnancy and infertility, sexually transmitted infections, and sexual health and functioning. Recent methodological research has provided new insights regarding the accuracy of self-reports of sexual behavior. We review these studies, paying particular attention to a promising new development: the use of computer-assisted assessments. The collection of sexual risk behavior data with computers has increased dramatically in recent years, but little is known about the accuracy of such assessments. We summarize the evidence, discuss methodological issues that arise in studies evaluating the accuracy of self-reports, and offer recommendations for future research.

This research evaluated the psychometric properties of a brief self-report measure of HIV-related knowledge, the HIV-KQ-18. Low-income men and women (N = 1019) responded to 27 items that represented the domain of interest. Item analyses indicated that 18 items, with item-total correlations ranging from .24 to .57, be retained. Additional analyses demonstrated the HIV-KQ-18's internal consistency across samples (alphas = .75 to .89), test-rest stability across several intervals (rs = .76 to .94), and strong associations with a much longer, previously validated measure (rs = .93 to .97). Data from three clinical trials indicated that the HIV-KQ-18 detected knowledge gains in treated participants when compared to untreated controls. We conclude that the HIV-KQ-18 is internally consistent, stable, sensitive to the change resulting from intervention, and suitable for use with lowliteracy populations. KeywordsHIV; AIDS; knowledge; assessment; questionnaire Most models of HIV-risk taking identify knowledge about disease transmission and selfprotective behaviors as one of the determinants of behavior change. For example, Fisher and Fisher (1992) developed the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills model, and identified information as one determinant of risk behavior and its reduction. Consistent with this and other behavioral science theories, programs designed to reduce risk behavior typically include education about HIV as one component of the intervention (Kalichman, 1998). Because knowledge is a key component of HIV risk reduction programs, interventionists often use knowledge assessments to guide educational curricula and to provide feedback to enhance risk awareness (Carey & Lewis, 1999); also, program evaluators and researchers often assess knowledge to determine the effectiveness of their interventions. Thus, practitioners and scientists need a reliable, valid, and feasible questionnaire to assess HIV-related knowledge.The HIV Knowledge Questionnaire (HIV-KQ; Carey, Morrison-Beedy, & Johnson, 1997) is a self-administered instrument that was developed using formative work, item and factor analyses to assess knowledge needed for HIV prevention. Respondents read 45 statements about HIV, and indicate whether they think the statement is true or false, or they indicate that they "don't know." Text analyses of the reading level, using Flesch and Spache formulae, indicate that most passages fall within the "fairly easy" to "very easy" range (i.e., at or below the 4 th grade level); however, several foreign words (e.g., vaccine, antibiotic) increase the overall level to the 7 th grade level. Although such words increase the reading level, they are likely to be widely understood even by low-literacy readers because of their common use in Correspondence regarding this manuscript should be addressed to: Michael P. Carey, Ph.D., Director, Center for Health and Behavior, Syracuse University, 430 Huntington Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340, Phone: 315.443.2755 The purpose of the research described in this paper was to v...

General self-efficacy is measured by a widely used parsimonious ten-item scale that was developed for use in several cultures. The present paper compares the verions that were examined in samples of 430 German, 959 Costa Rican, and 293 Chinese university students. The internal consistencies were .84, .81, and .91, respectively. The unidimensional nature of the scale was replicated in all samples. Multilingual item-pattern equivalence was only moderately supported by confirmatory factor analyses. Mean differences of sum scores between languages were found. Moreover, an interaction between gender and

L'auto-efficacite generale est mesurte grsce a une courte Cchelle composee de dix items. Son usage est tr&s rkpandu et elle a etC adaptee a plusieurs cultures. Cet article compare des versions qui ont CtC proposees 5 des etudiants: 430 Allemands, 952 Costariciens et 293 Chinois. Les validites internes sont respectivement de .84, .81 et .91. L'unidimensionnalite de I'Cchelle est reapparue dans tous les Cchantillons. L'equivalence items-modele interlinguistique ne fut que modCrCment approuve par des analyses factorielles de confirmation. On a trouvt des diffCrences au niveau des moyennes des scores totaux entre les langues. De plus, une interaction entre sexe et langue s'est manifestee. Des correlations avec la depression, I'anxiCt6 et I'optimisme ont fourni des dements complementaires en faveur de la validit6 de construction.General self-efficacy is measured by a widely used parsimonious ten-item scale that was developed for use in several cultures. The present paper compares the verions that were examined in samples of 430 German, 959 Costa Rican, and 293 Chinese university students. The internal consistencies were .84, .81, and .91, respectively. The unidimensional nature of the scale was replicated in all samples. Multilingual item-pattern equivalence was only moderately supported by confirmatory factor analyses. Mean differences of sum scores between languages were found. Moreover, an interaction between gender and