The reliability and validity of the Parenting Scale for Australian mothers of preschool-aged children

The aims of this paper were to examine the psychometric properties of the Parenting Scale in an Australian sample and to provide normative data on this scale for Australian mothers of preschool-aged children. The total sample included 1,656 mothers of children attending randomly selected preschools and mothers attending parenting groups. Principal components analysis of the Parenting Scale items supported the original three-factor structure described by the scale’s authors. Consistent with previous research, the Laxness and Overreactivity subscales demonstrated high levels of reliability and validity, whereas the Verbosity subscale did not. Specifically, the Overreactivity and Laxness subscales demonstrated high internal consistency, criterion validity and correlated significantly with measures of child behaviour. Whereas, scores on the Verbosity subscale demonstrated low internal consistency, did not differentiate between the two samples in the study, and had small, nonsignificant correlations with child behaviour scores.