Abstract:

Parenting practices are a field in psychology in which numerous studies have been carried out. In western countries, attempts to define the concept operationally have led to the emergence of many scales claiming to test the concept. This study aims at developing a scale to evaluate the parenting practices of parents with schoolchildren and at carrying out the validity and reliability tests of the scale in question. In the study, 511 parents with schoolchildren between the ages of 6-13 participated. The initial scale consisted of 84 items. Explanatory factor analysis was applied in order to analyze the construct validity and factor structure of the scale, whereas principle component analysis and the varimax rotation technique were used as the factoring technique. Following analysis, 32 items were removed from the scale. The final version of the scale consists of six components (sub-dimensions) and 52 items that explain 40.1% of the variance. Afterwards, secondorder confirmatory factor analysis was applied, and model data fit was observed to be high. Cronbach alpha values of the scales’ sub-dimensions were found to be between .65 and .79. Criterion validity of the scale was also tested during the study. To this end, the Parenting Practices Scale (PPS) and Parental Acceptance- Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ) were used. The correlation between sub-dimensions and total score was analyzed in the study, in which 168 parents participated in total. The findings support the criterion validity of the scale. Moreover, the results prove that the developed scale has the ability to validly test existing differences among parents’ parenting practices and the psychological structures leading to them.

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