Development and validation of the Knowledge of Effective Parenting Test (KEPT) in a nationally representative sample.

Abstract

We report on the development and psychometric properties of an instrument for the assessment of knowledge of effective parenting skills specific to conduct problems using an item response theory (IRT) framework. The initial item pool (36 items) for the Knowledge of Effective Parenting Test (KEPT) was administered online to a national sample (N = 1,570) selected to match the U.S. population on key demographic variables. Items with strong psychometric properties and without significant differential item functioning (DIF) by race/ethnicity were retained, resulting in a 21-item version of the KEPT with excellent reliability and validity. We also created a brief 10-item version of the KEPT to reduce respondent burden and to enhance its utility for repeated measurement in longitudinal and intervention research. We report norms and percentiles for both the 21-item version (KEPT–Full) and the 10-item version (KEPT–Brief).

National Norms and Correlates of the PHQ-8 and GAD-7 in Parents of School-age Children

“…Data were collected online in January-February 2018. The GAD-7 (Spitzer et al, 2006) and PHQ-8 (Kroenke & Spitzer, 2002) were among several questionnaires administered to participants using YouGov (www.yougov.com), a survey company that maintains a panel of over 1.2 million U.S. residents available for online surveys (see Lindhiem et al, 2019 for more details about the accrual and procedures for the panel). Participants included on the YouGov panels are recruited through online advertising, e-mail campaigns, partner contracts, random digit dialing, and mail (based on voter registration).…”

“…Though some participants were legal guardians, this sample will be referred to solely as parents throughout the remainder of the paper for brevity. Parents were originally recruited to test a novel parenting questionnaire (Lindhiem et al, 2019). Demographic information can be found in Table 1 (also see Lindhiem et al, 2019;Sequeira, Silk, Woods, Kolko, & Lindhiem, 2019).…”

“…Parents were originally recruited to test a novel parenting questionnaire (Lindhiem et al, 2019). Demographic information can be found in Table 1 (also see Lindhiem et al, 2019;Sequeira, Silk, Woods, Kolko, & Lindhiem, 2019). We collapse across U. S. region (i.e., South, West, Northeast, Midwest) for the present study, as participants in different regions did not significantly differ in parent age, gender, or household income (ps > .05) and differences in rates of depression by U.S. region are not supported (Kessler et al, 2003;Hasin et al, 2018).…”

A Computer Adaptive Test (CAT) for knowledge of parent management skills: Prototype development and preliminary psychometrics.

“…Parent management skills, based on behavioral principles, have importance as both risk factors and treatment targets for disruptive behavior disorders (Chorpita, Daleiden, & Weisz, 2005; Garland, Hawley, Brookman-Frazee, & Hurlburt, 2008; Lindhiem, Higa, Trentacosta, Herschell, & Kolko, 2014). The Knowledge of Effective Parenting Test (KEPT; Lindhiem et al, 2019) was developed to assess knowledge of core parent management skills with known efficacy in the context of clinical trials of psychosocial treatments for behavior problems in children (e.g., Wyatt Kaminski, Valle, Filene, & Boyle, 2008). Knowledge of parent management skills is only modestly associated with parenting behaviors but adds incrementally to the prediction of child conduct problems (Lindhiem et al, in press).…”

“…The KEPT has norms and psychometric characteristics based on a national sample ( N = 1,570) of parents/guardians of children aged 5–12 years (Lindhiem et al, 2019). There is also a shorter 10-item version of the measure (KEPT-Brief) with strong psychometric properties and a correlation of .94 with the full-length version.…”