Inter‐parent agreement on four preschool behavior rating scales: Effects of parent and child gender

Abstract

This study investigated inter-parent agreement on four preschool behavior rating scales. Sixty-four cohabiting biological parents rated their four and five year-old children's positive and negative behaviors. Results indicated low to moderate inter-parent correlations across all four preschool behavior rating scales for the total sample. Although mean score differences were not significantly different by parent or child gender, absolute differences between pairs of mothers' and fathers' ratings were large and consistent across instruments, as well as by gender of child and gender of parent. 0 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Requests for reprint should be sent directed to Bruce A. Bracken, Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 381 52. 273

Parental Reports of Early Socioemotional and Behavioral Problems: Does the Father's View Make a Difference?

“…They also found a moderate correspondence between maternal and paternal ratings of internalizing problems and a large correspondence between parental ratings of externalizing and total problems for 3-to 19-year-old children (Duhig et al, 2000). A trend of somewhat higher interparental correspondence on the Externalizing than Internalizing broadband and syndrome scales found in the current study might be due to higher observability, disturbance, social undesirability, and concreteness (Christensen et al, 1992;Walker & Bracken, 1996) of the externalizing versus internalizing CBCL items. However, the currently found higher correspondence in parental ratings for boys than for girls on 7 of the 10 CBCL scales is an interesting and, to our knowledge, also quite a unique finding thus far.…”

“…However, Van Zeijl et al (2006) investigated interparental correspondence for the CBCL/1-5 externalizing problems and syndromes among large samples of 12-, 24-, and 36-month-old children (n = 683, 635, and 647, respectively) in the Netherlands and reported moderate interparental correlations, r = .39-.58, for all three age groups, with some significantly lower correlations for 12-than for 24-to 36-month-olds. Summarized on the basis of the earlier research literature, a trend of somewhat higher interparental score correspondence for externalizing versus internalizing problems seems to be evident for children aged 3 to 19 years, which might be accounted by the findings that higher interparental agreement could be achieved when rating more external, objective, observable, social undesirable, and extreme behaviors than when rating behaviors with more opposite qualities (Christensen, Margolin, & Sullaway, 1992;Jensen, Traylor, Xenakis, & Davis, 1988;Walker & Bracken, 1996). Regarding the effect of child age on the interparental rating correspondence, the earlier studies have demonstrated inconsistent findings.…”

Cross-Informant Agreement on the Child Behavior Checklist for Youths: A Meta-Analysis

“…Empirical studies (Bartels et al., 2003) have also found that mothers and fathers had different views of problem behavior. As the mother and father rating accuracy was unknown (Walker & Bracken, 1996), use of both mothers’ and fathers’ ratings can provide more complete information. Hence, practitioners and researchers should include both parents’ ratings in the assessment of child problem behavior.…”

Including fathers in school psychology literature: A review of four school psychology journals

“…In the nine other articles, fathers were mentioned or discussed independent of "mothers" or "parents," but were not the central focus of the article. In four articles, fathers were enrolled as participants and asked to make independent ratings of their children, and their responses were compared with those from mothers (Ruffalo & Elliot, 1997;Smith & Brody, 2000;Volenski, 1995;Walker & Bracken, 1996). Three of these four studies found significant differences in the ratings completed by mothers and fathers.…”