Temporal Invariance in Repeated Cross-Sectional ‘Fear of Crime’ Research

Abstract

‘Fear of crime’ research is gradually outgrowing the tenacious criticism of being caught within a conservative methodological frame, inherent to the era when the research tradition originated. Over time, the idea that ‘fear of crime’ can be measured in a reliable and valid way by using a single indicator has been questioned. However, using more advanced measures confronts the research tradition with ‘new’ issues related to measurement error, and therefore urges methodological novelty and sophistication to a field notoriously starved of both. Previously, we provided evidence that in order for cross-cultural comparisons to be meaningful, the instruments used to measure ‘fear of crime’, need to exhibit adequate cross-cultural equivalence. This contribution argues that comparing ‘fear of crime’ levels across time is bound to this logic as well. Considering the growing attention paid in recent years to crime, insecurity and ‘fear of crime’ within public opinion in Belgium, as in Western Europe and in an international context in general, it is not unlikely that respondents have indeed changed or are changing their understanding of the issue. Using structural equation modelling (LISREL), this issue of potential temporal invariance or item parameter drift in ‘fear of crime’ item sets, will be assessed in two large scale, repeated cross-sectional research projects in Belgium, Le. the Safety Monitor and the APS-survey.

Testing for cultural measurement equivalence in research on domestic and international tertiary students' fear of crime

“…Both measures were called 'fear of crime'. Similarly, Pleysier et al (2005) measured fear of crime differently across two samples over time. If measures of fear of crime across samples or over time differ, it is impossible to perceive how equivalence is assured.…”

“…Omnibus tests and tests for configurable invariance have been largely ignored and the sequences of testing for CME vary. Pleysier and colleagues (Pauwels & Pleysier, 2005; Pleysier, Pauwels, Vervaeke, & Goethals, 2005; Pleysier, Vervaeke, & Goethals, 2004) highlight issues relating to CME across linguistically divergent communities and over time. Nonetheless, this series of investigations fails to report results of omnibus, configurable, metric, and scalar tests and mainly focus on modifying models to identify variance on the basis of the modification indices.…”

“…Both measures were called ‘fear of crime’. Similarly, Pleysier et al. (2005) measured fear of crime differently across two samples over time.…”

Investigating the Impact of Item Parameter Drift for Item Response Theory Models with Mixture Distributions

“…Researchers have analyzed trends in international mathematics achievement based on overall performance of students using both the TIMSS and the PISA (Baucal et al, 2006 ; Black and Wiliam, 2007 ; Takayama, 2007 ). Although there are several empirical studies on IPD in the educational and psychological measurement literature (e.g., Skykes and Ito, 1993 ; Juve, 2004 ; Pleysier et al, 2005 ), there are only a few that have specifically examined IPD in international assessments. For example, Wu et al ( 2006 ) conducted a comparison study between the U.S. and Singapore to detect IPD.…”