Dimensionality and Measurement Invariance of the Sexually Aggressive Behaviors Scale across Male and Female Portuguese College Students
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I wish to thank the reviewers for their interesting article. I really do not have any remarks. There is one sentence I found strange (in the discussion) 'Ultimately, the uncertainty surrounding this thematic stress the need to improve the measurement of SV-related outcomes within community samples, as SV is a topic of priority interest among those contexts and not only in forensic ones.'
Other than that, I feel it would be more nitpicking than real critique on the article. So, for me accetable for publication.
Author Response
Review Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Point 1: I wish to thank the reviewers for their interesting article. I really do not have any remarks. There is one sentence I found strange (in the discussion) 'Ultimately, the uncertainty surrounding this thematic stress the need to improve the measurement of SV-related outcomes within community samples, as SV is a topic of priority interest among those contexts and not only in forensic ones.'
Other than that, I feel it would be more nitpicking than real critique on the article. So, for me accetable for publication.
Author’s notes to reviewer 1
Thank you very much for your feedback.
Response 1: Considering your comment, we reviewed that sentence in hopes to make it clearer.
Other than that, I feel it would be more nitpicking than real critique on the article. So, for me accetable for publication.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your feedback. Considering your comment, we reviewed that sentence in hopes to make it clearer.
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript titled "Dimensionality and measurement invariance of the Sexually Aggressive Behaviors Scale across male and female Portuguese college students" for consideration for publication. This is an interesting article that seeks to establish the validity of the Portuguese version of the SABS for use with both male and female college students.
In general, this manuscript is very well-written with a few minor typos. For example:
Page 2, line 78: Use of the word "prone" is incorrect. Consider "...can leave individuals prone to the perception..."
Page 3, line 110: remove the word "it" after the word "women"
Page 3, line 150: "male" should be plurl
Page 4, line 154: "on relation" should be "in relation"
Page 5, line 206: "unknow" should be "unknown"
etc.
Also, on page 2, line 81, the authors mention that "psychopathic personality traits were predictive of positive attitudes toward sexually coercive behaviors" It would be helpful to list what these traits are, or at least give examples of psychopathic personality traits.
On page 4, line 159 is confusing. "..and the lack of personal validation intimate relationships.." Perhaps the authors meant "personally validating intimate relationships"?
The data analysis is appropriate and well-presented, and conclusions follow directly from the analysis. i am glad the authors recognized in their limitations that future research should investigate non-heterosexual and nonbinary populations.
The major problem that should be addressed in this manuscript has to do with Figure 1. Figure 1 includes two separate figures, but the figure description identifies three different figures. It is not possible to know which figures (male, female, total) are actually included. The description also says "left, center, right" but the figures are listed one at a time. This is likely due to the rendering of the figures by the publisher, but the authors need to address this problem so the reader can follow what is being presented. I would suggest three different figures presented one at a time.
Author Response
Review Report (Reviewer 2)
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Point 1: Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript titled "Dimensionality and measurement invariance of the Sexually Aggressive Behaviors Scale across male and female Portuguese college students" for consideration for publication. This is an interesting article that seeks to establish the validity of the Portuguese version of the SABS for use with both male and female college students.
In general, this manuscript is very well-written with a few minor typos. For example:
Page 2, line 78: Use of the word "prone" is incorrect. Consider "...can leave individuals prone to the perception..."
Page 3, line 110: remove the word "it" after the word "women"
Page 3, line 150: "male" should be plurl
Page 4, line 154: "on relation" should be "in relation"
Page 5, line 206: "unknow" should be "unknown"
etc.
Point 2: Also, on page 2, line 81, the authors mention that "psychopathic personality traits were predictive of positive attitudes toward sexually coercive behaviors" It would be helpful to list what these traits are, or at least give examples of psychopathic personality traits.
Point 3: On page 4, line 159 is confusing. "..and the lack of personal validation intimate relationships.." Perhaps the authors meant "personally validating intimate relationships"?
The data analysis is appropriate and well-presented, and conclusions follow directly from the analysis. i am glad the authors recognized in their limitations that future research should investigate non-heterosexual and nonbinary populations.
Point 4: The major problem that should be addressed in this manuscript has to do with Figure 1. Figure 1 includes two separate figures, but the figure description identifies three different figures. It is not possible to know which figures (male, female, total) are actually included. The description also says "left, center, right" but the figures are listed one at a time. This is likely due to the rendering of the figures by the publisher, but the authors need to address this problem so the reader can follow what is being presented. I would suggest three different figures presented one at a time.
Author’s notes to reviewer 2
Thank you very much for your review of this manuscript and the suggestions to improve it.
Point 1: The writing errors that were brought to our attention have now been corrected.
Point 2: Following your suggestions, some examples of the psychopathic traits have been added to the respective paragraph and some text has been reviewed.
Point 3: Thank you for your suggestion, that sentence has been modified and we hope it is clearer now.
Point 4: We have addressed the Figure's issue (now presenting three different figures for the male, female, and total samples).
Reviewer 3 Report
The introduction is concise and provides a literature gap. For example, the paragraph is difficult to follow and is missing references. Please rephrase to convey the message from the other Portughese study. “In another study conducted with a Portuguese sample of male college students, 55 52.6% of participants reported having attempted sexual interaction using aggressive 56 means (Carvalho & Sá, 2017). More specifically, , 87.7% resorted to use sexual coercion 57 (e.g., verbal pressure), 41.4% engaged in sexual abuse/use of power (e.g., inducing intox- 58 ication), and 7.4% used physical force (actual use of force or weapons).”
The methods: The authors failed to state how the survey was constructed. It was expected to have 1-2 paragraphs about the survey construction and which questions were taken or modified from other surveys.
Certain paragraphs should be part of the results. For example: “From those, 1232 were males and 1308 were females. The participants age ranged between 18 and 39 (M= 22.80; SD= 4.60). Most participants were attending undergraduate courses (n=1947; 76.65%). Additionally, most of the sample reported being single (n=1722; 67.80%) and to have one current sexual partner (n= 1806; 71.10%). The average age of the participants at their first sexual intercourse experience was 17 years old (M=17.28; SD=2.06)”
The authors state the sample of the study comprised of Portuguese College students. Should the reader understand that the survey was sent to all Portuguese students? If so, how was the survey administered?
Regarding the data analysis, the authors did not specify what software they used.
Discussion: The authors failed to discuss their results and present the novelty of this study. For example, please remove the following paragraph because it is repetitive. “The present study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the SABS-PT in 409 male college students, using a confirmatory factor analysis and exploring the one-factor 410 solution previously proposed by Rosa and colleagues (2022). The validity evidence of the 411 construct in relation to external variables was also examined. Additionally, the current 412 study proposed to investigate the measurement invariance of that measurement model 413 across gender.”
There are some sentences that need to be in the discussion that are not relevant to this part of the manuscript. Please remove them “Further analysis indicated the SABS-PT good reliability for each gender and for the total sample.”
Conclusion is missing.
Author Response
Review Report (Reviewer 3)
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Point 1: The introduction is concise and provides a literature gap. For example, the paragraph is difficult to follow and is missing references. Please rephrase to convey the message from the other Portughese study. “In another study conducted with a Portuguese sample of male college students, 55 52.6% of participants reported having attempted sexual interaction using aggressive 56 means (Carvalho & Sá, 2017). More specifically, , 87.7% resorted to use sexual coercion 57 (e.g., verbal pressure), 41.4% engaged in sexual abuse/use of power (e.g., inducing intox- 58 ication), and 7.4% used physical force (actual use of force or weapons)
Point 2: The methods: The authors failed to state how the survey was constructed. It was expected to have 1-2 paragraphs about the survey construction and which questions were taken or modified from other surveys.
Point 3: Certain paragraphs should be part of the results. For example: “From those, 1232 were males and 1308 were females. The participants age ranged between 18 and 39 (M= 22.80; SD= 4.60). Most participants were attending undergraduate courses (n=1947; 76.65%). Additionally, most of the sample reported being single (n=1722; 67.80%) and to have one current sexual partner (n= 1806; 71.10%). The average age of the participants at their first sexual intercourse experience was 17 years old (M=17.28; SD=2.06)”
Point 4: The authors state the sample of the study comprised of Portuguese College students. Should the reader understand that the survey was sent to all Portuguese students? If so, how was the survey administered?
Point 5: Regarding the data analysis, the authors did not specify what software they used.
Point 6: Discussion: The authors failed to discuss their results and present the novelty of this study. For example, please remove the following paragraph because it is repetitive. “The present study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the SABS-PT in 409 male college students, using a confirmatory factor analysis and exploring the one-factor 410 solution previously proposed by Rosa and colleagues (2022). The validity evidence of the 411 construct in relation to external variables was also examined. Additionally, the current 412 study proposed to investigate the measurement invariance of that measurement model 413 across gender.” There are some sentences that need to be in the discussion that are not relevant to this part of the manuscript. Please remove them “Further analysis indicated the SABS-PT good reliability for each gender and for the total sample.”
Point 7: Conclusion is missing.
Author’s notes to reviewer 3
Thank you for your comments and suggestions to improve this paper. Your feedback was taken into consideration and some changes and additions to the text have been made accordingly:
Point 1: Small adjustments to the following paragraph: “In another study conducted with a Portuguese sample of male college students (…)” were made according to your comments.
Point 2: Thank you for your suggestion to improve the methods section. An explanation on the survey construction has been added to that section of the manuscript.
Point 3: Regarding the paragraph “From those, 1232 were males and 1308 were females. The participants age ranged between (…)”: upon your suggestion, we have discussed the possibility of changing this paragraph to the results section. Ultimately, we have come to an agreement that this is essential information to describe our participants and characterize our sample. In this sense, we believe it should remain in the “Participants and procedures” sub-section. Would you agree to that?
Point 4: This study was advertised through all Portuguese universities. Nevertheless, the authors did not know whether all universities advertised the study, nor if students from all universities participated. The identification of Universities is not allowed.
Point 5: Regarding the software used for the statistical analysis, that information is presented in last paragraph of the designated section as follows “Descriptives and realibility statistics were computed with JASP software (version 0.15.0.0). CFA and invariance testing were performed using structural equation modeling with the Mplus 8.3 software (Muthén & Muthén, 2017).”.
Point 6: We have taken your suggestions into consideration and significant changes have been made to the discussion session. The paragraph “The present study aimed to (…) across gender” has been removed. Moreover, we hope that the modifications to the text help to clarify the relevance of the study for the readers.
Point 7: Regarding your final comment, the conclusion was the last paragraph of the Discussion section. Nonetheless, to emphasize the paper’s conclusion, we have taken your suggestion and allocated that paragraph for that specific section.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors addressed my concerns.
