Development of Risk-Taking Tendency Tool for High School Students

BACKGROUND: Adolescence is the age of increased sensation-seeking and risk-taking. To prevent such behaviors, the adolescent tendency to engage in high-risk behaviors must be measureable. This study aimed to develop a questionnaire about risk-taking tendencies among Iranian students. METHODS: This study was conducted using cluster sampling of the tenth-grade students in three cities in Kerman province, Iran. The students were assured that the questionnaires would remain anonymous and unlinked. Construct validity was assessed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and comparison of known groups. Corrected item-scale correlation and Cronbach's alpha were calculated to evaluate reliability. FINDINGS: A total of 551 high school students participated in this study. Of these, 57 were excluded after checking the “non-existent drug” item (10.3%). Girls accounted for 49.2% of the sample. Of the 33 initial questions, 13 were removed due to factor loading of less than 0.5. Two factors were extracted using the scree plot (“drug abuse tendency" and "other risky behavior tendency"). The tendency toward high-risk behavior was significantly higher in male students than in female ones (P < 0.001). This indicates the known group validity of the questionnaire. The Cronbach's alpha of the above-mentioned factors were 0.93 and 0.83, respectively. CONCLUSION: The questionnaire measuring the tendency toward high-risk behavior among students showed acceptable validity and reliability.