Parent Report on Child's Close Friends
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Abstract
The Parent Report on Child's Close Friends measure was
first given in year 8 of this study as part of the summer interview.
The measure consists of 10 questions, centered around three main
topics: the child's best friend, the child's second best friend,
and the child's close friends. For each topic, parents are asked
the same three questions: 1) does this friend get into trouble with
teachers, the police, or other adults?, 2) does this friend do things
you disapprove of?, and 3) are you concerned about the negative
influence this friend has on your child? The tenth question asks
parents, "How much does your son/daughter hang around with
kids who get into trouble?"
The first nine items use a scale of 1 to 4 (very much, somewhat,
a little, and not at all). The last item uses a scale of 1 to 5
(never, almost never, some, frequently, and all the time). The first
nine items were reversed in order to be more consistent with other
scales of this type (i.e. a low score would indicate less concern
while a high score would indicate more concern). Item 10 is rescaled
to a four-point scale for consistency with the other items.
Four scales were theoretically derived by summing across the items
for each subscale. The first subscale, Trouble with Adults, includes
three items that ask whether the child's best friend, second best
friend, and close friends get into trouble with the police, teachers,
or other adults. The second subscale, Parental Disapproval of Friends,
includes three items that ask whether the parent disapproves of
the things the child's best friend, second best friend, and close
friends do. The third subscale, Parental Concern over Negative Influence
of Friends, includes three items that ask whether the parent is
concerned about the negative influence of the child's best friend,
second best friend, and close friends. The fourth scale, Total Parental
Concern, includes all ten items with item 10 rescaled, so that a
low score indicates that the parents are not very concerned about
their child's friends and a high score indicates that the parents
are very concerned about their child's friends.
All of the subscales showed a moderate to high level of internal
reliability for both the control and the normative samples.
Analysts should note that one subscale, Parental Disapproval of
Friends, was normally distributed for both the control and normative
samples. One subscale, Trouble with Adults, was positively skewed
for both samples. The other two subscales, Parental Concern over
Negative Influence of Friends and Total Parental Concern, were positively
skewed for the normative sample and normally distributed for the
control sample.
Users of this measure should consider using the overall scale,
Total Parental Concern, which showed a high level of reliability
for both the normative and the control samples. In addition, if
the researcher needs further information, the other three scales
could be used as well. Researchers and analysts should note that
a number of responses about the second best friend were missing,
seeming to indicate that parents are less likely to know who is
their child's second best friend.
Keywords: Peer Relationships, Delinquent Behaviors, Peer Influence
Administration History
See study
years administered.
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02 June 2003
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