Reexamining the parenting scale - Reliability, factor structure, and concurrent validity of a scale for assessing the discipline practices of mothers and fathers of elementary-school-aged children

The reliability, factor structure, and concurrent validity of the Parenting Scale (Arnold, O'Leary, Wolff, & Acker, 1993), a 30-item instrument originally developed to assess the discipline practices of parents of preschool children, was examined for parents of elementary school-aged children. Participants were 596 mothers and 559 fathers of a proportionally stratified sample of nonclinical elementary school-aged children. A confirmatory factor analysis could not replicate the three factors found by Arnold et al. (1993). An exploratory factor analysis, using data of the mother sample, revealed two interpretable factors corresponding with the overreactivity and laxness factors identified in previous studies of the parenting scale. The first factor contains 11 and the second factor 9 items. Confirmatory factor analyses, using 3-year follow-up data from the mother and the father sample separately, replicated this factor structure. The internal consistency and test-retest stability were acceptable to good. Evidence was found for the assumption that inadequate parenting is positively related to problem behavior measured by the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991) and stress in parenting measured by the NOSI, a Dutch revision of the Parenting Stress Index (Abidin, 1983).