The Event History Calendar as an Instrument for Longitudinal Criminological Research

Abstract

Event History Calendars (EHCs) arc data collection instruments used to elicit and record time-ordered data about events in people's lives. In essence they consist of a graphical time frame with a number of timelines, arranged in a grid, that comprise data-entry cells to record and code events. This paper reports findings on using an EHC in a longitudinal study on child aggressive and non-aggressive problem behaviour. The calendar was administered to the primary caregivers to collect data on the period between the child's birth and age 7, the first wave of a longitudinal study conducted with 1,200 children in the City of Zurich. Using current knowledge about the role of early family-related and individual risk factors as a benchmark, the study examines whether event history data predict aggressive and non-aggressive problem behaviours in the expected size-order and direction. More specifically, we distinguish three aspects of criterion-related validity: The analyses show that risk-factors measured in the calendar are correlated with behaviour outcomes in the expected direction, that the size-order and relative importance of early risk factors are in line with the previous literature, that longer exposure to a risk factor is associated with ail added risk, and that the likelihood of problematic outcomes is related to cumulative contextual risk.