The development and validation of the Adult Recollection of Parental Relating Questionnaire - a new instrument for measuring parental relating styles

The aim of this project was the development of a questionnaire to measure retrospectively the relating of parents towards their children, from the perspective of the child. The two main dimensions of parenting agreed upon in the literature are support and control, and the present thesis proposes that these can be conceptualised as composites of proximity and power, which are considered the main constructs underlying interpersonal transactions. The design of the Adult Recollection of Parental Relating Questionnaire (ARPRQ) was governed by the principles of Birtchnell’s relating theory (1987, 1993), the distinguishing features of which are the difference between positive and negative relating, and the absence of construct bipolarity. The ARPRQ comprises of 48 items distributed evenly over eight scales, and has a separate version for each parent. The items were generated and refined through an iterative process consisting of repeated piloting, item analysis and item rephrasing. The psychometric properties of the instrument were established in three main studies. Study One assessed the internal consistency reliability (N=117) and the concurrent validity (N=75) with the comparable Parental Bonding Instrument (PBIParker, Tupling & Brown, 1979). As anticipated, the scales of the ARPRQ correlated positively with the Overprotection scale and negatively with the Care scale of the PBI. Study Two assessed the internal consistency reliability (N=104) and the construct validity (N=8) of the revised version of the measure. Content analysis of interviews revealed patterns of parental relating similar to those obtained using the ARPRQ. The factorial configuration of the instrument was established in Study Three (N=601). The results of the principal component analysis showed the presence of four factors, corresponding with closeness, distance, upperness and lowerness, as defined in relating theory. It was concluded that the ARPRQ has good internal consistency reliability, as demonstrated by Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients, and compared favourably with the PBI and with interviews. Results are discussed with reference to implications for parenting research and potential applications of the instrument.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

City University London

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Harnagea, Cristina

• BF Psychology