Designing and Examining the Psychometric Properties of the Multidimensional Parenting Questionnaire

The type and method of education with the parent's parenting style are the main elements and dynamic and influential processes within the family, whose effects and consequences on children's mental health and social behavior have been considered. Several variables affect parenting: biological factors, personality characteristics of parents, child characteristics, and contextual effects, including social aspects, family background, socioeconomic status, and culture. Therefore, parents' parenting methods and their influencing factors are key research topics. Knowing these influencing factors on parenting styles leads to learning about families and their influence from these factors. Despite much research, no standardized Persian or foreign scale was found to measure the factors influencing parenting in a multidimensional way, which examines all the mentioned dimensions. Therefore, the present study was conducted to design and investigate the psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Parenting Questionnaire.

The current research design was descriptive–analytical and of the tool construction and development. The statistical population of the research comprised parents with preschool children in Shahrood City, Iran, in 2022. A total of 352 parents were selected using the available sampling method. Five psychologists were used to check the content validity with the Delphi method. The Lawshe index (content validity ratio) was used to evaluate the content validity, and 10 end users of the questionnaire were used to check the face validity. Then, to check the validity of the structure, the exploratory factor analysis method was used, and to check reliability, the Cronbach alpha coefficient and test–retest method were used. The inclusion criteria were as follows: parents have children, children live with their parents, no history of psychiatric disorder, informed consent to participate in research, and not participating in individual counseling sessions outside therapy sessions. The exclusion criterion was non–participation. In the present study, the exploratory method and factor analysis of principal components using the varimax rotation method was used to examine the factor structure of the Multidimensional Parenting Questionnaire. Because the Multidimensional Parenting Questionnaire was designed for the first time in Iran and until now, factor analysis has not been done, the present study aimed to investigate the factor structure of the questionnaire. In factor analysis, factor loadings greater than 0.411 were considered. In this research, eigenvalues were used to determine the number of factors that make up the Multidimensional Parenting Questionnaire. The Multidimensional Parenting Questionnaire with 37 questions is graded on a 5–point Likert scale from completely disagree (1) to completely agree (5). The range of subjects' scores is from 37 to 185. Data analysis was done with SPSS software version 24 at a significance level 0.05.

The results of the qualitative content validity examination led to the elimination of 18 items, and a questionnaire with 37 items was prepared. The results of exploratory factor analysis showed that the Multidimensional Parenting Questionnaire consists of 12 factors, which explains 81.3% of the variance. The Cronbach α of the factors of this questionnaire were obtained for childhood injury as 0.74, for parents' religious orientation as 0.71, for economic status as 0.75, for father's role as 0.81, for guilt as 0.89, for personality trait as 0.76, for marital conflicts as 0.77, for parenting perception as 0.75, for parents' responsiveness as 0.80, for physical problems as 0.73, for relatives' involvement as 0.74, and for parents' expectations as 0.77.

Based on the findings of this research, the Multidimensional Parenting Questionnaire is a reliable and valid tool and can be considered in research and counseling departments.