The area of parenting assessment lacks an inexpensive, comprehensive, psychometrically sound, and easy-to-use instrument that has been validated on an ethnically diverse group of parents. The area of parent training, in particular, lacks an instrument with these properties that also measures the parenting behaviors that are often the targets of such interventions. The Parent Behavior Scale (PBS), a parent self-report questionnaire, was evaluated with an ethnically diverse sample of 114 parents and their 4- and 5-year-old children. Thirty-eight percent of these parents self-reported as Hispanic, 26% as African American, and 36% as European American. The scale demonstrated adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Scores on the PBS were significantly related to several measures of parenting. PBS scores were, in general, not strongly related to measures of child behavior problems. Four factors of parenting behavior were identified: They were (1) angry vs. warm, (2) permissive/frustrated vs. firm/calm, (3) powerless vs. purposeful, and (4) disengaged vs. active parenting. The PBS should help researchers evaluate the efficacy of behavioral parent-training interventions for child behavior problems, and this instrument should help clinicians who use such interventions to track their clients' progress.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-3231 |
| Date | 01 January 1999 |
| Creators | Ortiz, Camilo |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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