Abstract

Learning about romantic relationships can be one of the central features of adolescence. However, there are not many useful and scholarly tools for adolescents to evaluate themselves and their relationship competence. Such tools can be helpful in the premarital education process. READY is a premarital assessment questionnaire instrument that is used for such purposes but it was designed for use with adults ages 18 and over. In this study READY for Adolescents (READY-A) was developed as a revision and extension of READY with age-appropriate questions to be used with adolescents. A review of literature on adolescent romantic relationships and factors that affect the adolescent's individual competence in these relationships was completed for this study. Based on the ecosystemic developmental theory and developmental theory of interpersonal competence, characteristics found important to adolescent romantic relationships were grouped into two categories: individual characteristics of the adolescent and contextual factors of the adolescent's life. Individual characteristics included the sub-factors of relationship cognitions, emotional awareness, rejection sensitivity, personality traits, and sexual conservativism. Contextual factors were deal with the adolescent's family of origin and same sex/best friendships. An item pool previously created for a similar questionnaire (RELATE for Adolescents, Young, 2002) was reviewed, edited, and expanded to be made suitable for the purposes of READY-A. The items were reviewed by a panel of experts (all professors with extensive background in premarital research and members of the RELATE Board) in order to assess face validity and content validity and to omit items deemed inappropriate, repetitive or unnecessary. This process resulted in the creation of a 141-item questionnaire, READY-A. Additional research will need to further validate READY-A, test for reliability, and further refine the questionnaire through pilot testing with a group of adolescents. READY-A may be helpful to adolescents who are learning about what it takes to develop romantic relationship competence. The main purpose of READY-A is for educational settings; however, it could also be of use to family life educators, premarital counselors or clergy working with adolescents.

Degree

College and Department

Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Family Life; Marriage and Family Therapy

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