About My Parent
Adapted from the Positive Parenting and Discipline
measures of the Pittsburgh Youth Study (see Thornberry, Huizinga,
& Loeber, 1995). Pittsburgh Youth Study, The Department of Psychiatry
of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 3811 O'Hara Street,
Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
Abstract
The About My Parent questionnaire is a 17-item measure
which assesses children's perceptions of their primary caregivers'
parenting responses when they engage in pleasing and displeasing
behavior. The first 8 items are drawn from the Discipline measure,
and are used to assess the frequency with which parents use different
disciplinary strategies for the infraction of family rules. The
last 9 items, drawn from the Positive Parenting measure, provide
the youth's report on the frequency with which their parent provides
positive praise and reinforcement when they do something that the
parent approves of. All items are rated on a 5-point scale ranging
from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almost always).
Two different methods for scaling will be presented. The primary
scaling procedure was derived from exploratory factor analyses on
the Normative sample, conducted separately for the Discipline and
Positive Parenting items. A more detailed discussion of the primary
scaling procedure can be found in the addendum. The alternate scaling
was constructed to closely parallel the algorithms used by Loeber
and his colleagues in the Pittsburgh Youth Study's "Positive Parenting/Low
Reinforcement" construct. It includes items from both the parent
and youth versions of this measure, both combined and in separate
scales. Although our alternate scale comprises the same items as
their scale, our measure uses a 5-point response scale, whereas
theirs utilized a 3-point response scale. Each scale score is derived
from the mean of the items that compose it, with the exception of
Low Reinforcement, which is the sum of the means of the parent and
youth reports.
This measure was scaled so as to create identical scales as those
generated by the parent's report on the Parenting (Primary Caregiver)
measure. Note that this scaling is different from what was used
in the original Technical Report written by McMahon, Jones, & Kim
(1997). The current scales are preferred because they are more specific.
Although Item 8 ("Tell you to get out or lock you out of the house
for a while") has low variability, it was retained in the Harsh
Discipline scale due to its consistency with more punitive forms
of discipline.
Keywords: Discipline, Punishment, Communication, Rewards, Positive
Parenting.
Administration History
See study
years administered.
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11 October 2004
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