Construction and Psychometric Characteristics of the Parental Sexual Education Styles Questionnaire

The attitude of parents to their children's sexual education has an effect on their sexual behavior and interaction with their children. No specific measurement tool has ever been developed to evaluate and measure this matter. The aim of present study was to develop a parental sexual education style questionnaire and determine its psychometric criteria.

The used research method was descriptive-correlation. The statistical population of present study included parents residing in Behshahr city with children ranging in age from 4 to 12 years old. Among them, 500 individuals were selected as sample. The required data were gathered through three questionnaires including Parenting Style Questionnaire (PSQ), Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ) and Parental Sexual Education Style Questionnaire (PSEQ). The gathered data were analyzed using Cranach’s alpha coefficient, correlation coefficient, confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis.

Three factors were extracted from the results of confirmatory factor analysis, including strict sexual education style, permissive sexual education style and authoritative education style. In general, all 3 factors were able to explain 50.32% of variance related to 33 items of the questionnaire. The value of Cranach’s alpha coefficient was obtained equal to 0.751 for whole of the questionnaire. Also, the value of Cranach’s alpha for the first three components was equal to 0.739, 0.765 and 0.751, respectively. The Varimax rotation matrix showed that all questions are applicable to the extracted styles.

Parental sexual education styles questionnaire has proper reliability and validity, and can be used as a useful tool for measuring parental sexual education styles.