A Q-Sort assessment of parents' beliefs about parenting in six midwestern states

Abstract

Little is known about what today's new parents believe about parenting. A team of seven researchers from six midwestern universities have initiated a longitudinal investigation of rural and urban parents' beliefs concerning ideal and actual parenting practices. This article describes the research and the development of the Inventory of Parenting Behavior, a Q‐Sort measure developed by the project team specifically for this study.

French parents’ cultural models and childrearing beliefs

“…(2) the Maternal Expectations, Attitudes, and Beliefs Inventory (Rickard, Graziano, & Forehand, 1984); (3) the NC-158 QSort Inventory of Parenting Practices (Lawton et al, 1983); (4) the Maternal Developmental Expectations and Childrearing Attitudes Scale (Field, Widmayer, Stringer, & Ignatoff, 1980); and T raditions Familiales de Soins et d'Education aux Jeunes Enfants (Stork, 1986). Second, parenting practices and beliefs that have been included in previous cross-cultural or French cultural studies of parenting (discussed in the introduction) such as holding, cosleeping, leaving a baby alone at home, having one's child taste a variety of foods, and drawing the baby's attention to oneself and to objects in the environment were also included in the nal questionnaire.…”

Parental attitudes toward child rearing: Instruments, issues, and implications.

“…A few other response formats were used, including Q sorts, multiple choice, ranking, fill-in the blanks, forced choice, or a mixture of formats. The Q-sort approach, as a method to control for social desirability effects, has been appearing more frequently over the past 5 years (Lawton et al, 1983; Sameroff & Feil, 1985; Segal, 1985).…”

“…Depending on the instrument, many surveys as well as subscales include an undefined mixture of types of items. Relatively few questionnaires sample exclusively from one domain, such as beliefs (e.g., Elias & Ubriaco, 1986; Roehling & Robin, 1986), behavioral intentions (Lawton et al, 1983), or values (Holtzman et al, 1975; Segal, 1985).…”

Maternal behavior and child competence

“…The subjects were 48 Iowa mothers and their first-born 3-year-old children who participated each of three consecutive years in a regional longitudinal study (Lawton, Colman, Boger, Pease, Galejs, Looney, & Poresky, 1983).…”

“…Of specific interest were maternal affective and directive behaviors and the child's cognitive (verbal) competence. Data were from 52 Iowa families with a 3-year-old first-born child who participated in the NC-158 regional longitudinal project, "A Study of Parenting Beliefs in Rural and Urban Populations" (Lawton, Colman, Boger, Pease, Galejs, Looney, & Poresky, 1983) at consecutive yearly intervals over a three-year period.…”