Measurement Tools

Terms: validity and reliability of measurement

Find a more comprehensive list of measurement tools on these websites: FRIENDS or American Evaluation Association.

Measurement tool	Constructs	Description	NECF Centers' experiences	How to get / find
Parenting Stress Index - Short Form (PSI)	Parental stress	Examines stress in the parent-child system; PSI has 120 items; the PSI/SF (Short Form) has 36 items (recommended).	Quite a few centers are now using. [comments] ------------------ Dallas, TX Naperville, IL Oklahoma City, OK Pinellas Park, FL Ripley, TN	Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc. Phone: 800-331-8378
North Carolina Family Assessment Scale (NCFAS)	Family relationships, parenting skills, support, child and family health	Completed by Case Managers. The NCFAS is a practice-based instrument designed to assess five domains of family functioning.	Several centers are beginning to use the NCFAS. It is similar to our INA. ------------------ Baltimore, MD Billings, MO	NCFAS (pdf file) Phone: 888-498-9047
Adult-Adolescent Parenting Index (AAPI-2)	Parenting attitudes	32-item attitudinal inventory to identify those at-risk for inadequate parenting behaviors	Used by many centers with mixed reviews. [comments] ------------------ Benton Harbor, MI Birmingham, AL Bradenton, FL Chico, CA Ft. Pierce, FL Gulfport, MS Livingston, TN Missoula, MT N. Charleston, SC Oxford, MS Rome, GA Stamford, CT Vicksburg, MS Waterloo, IA West Chester, PA	AAPI Phone: 800-688-5822
Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI)	Parenting attitudes	Assesses parents' attitudes toward parenting and toward their children; 78 items.	Some usage by centers. ------------------Naperville, IL	Western Psychological Services Phone: 800-648-8857
Family Support Scale (FSS)	Social support	Measures the helpfulness of sources of support to families rearing a young child. The scale has 18 items.	Some usage by centers. ------------------ Pinellas Park	Dunst, C. J., Trivette, C. M., & Deal, A. G. (Eds.) (1994). Supporting and strengthening families, Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books. Phone: 617-558-8010
Helping Relationship Inventory (HRI:C; HRI:W)	Parent-Parent Aide relationship	Self-report administered at posttest - reflects the quality of the worker-client relationship to the helping process.	Some usage by centers. ------------------	HRI [pdf]
Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAPI)	Child abuse and neglect potential; physical child abuse; child safety	160-item physical child abuse scale that is self-report and is answered in an agree/ disagree, forced-choice format.	Some centers say it is too long and too complex to score and interpret. ------------------ Memphis, TN Oklahoma City, OK Westchester, PA	Psychological Assessment Resources Phone: 815-758-1415
Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS)	Intimate partner violence; child safety	Measures the extent to which partners in a dating, cohabiting, or marital relationship engage in psychological and physical attacks on each other and also their use of reasoning or negotiation to deal with conflicts.	Some usage by centers.	Western Pyschological Services Phone: 603-862-2594
Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D)	Parental depression	Short self-report scale designed to measure depressive symptomatology in the general population	Not sure if this one has been tried by a center yet.	CESD [pdf]) Public domain
Services log	Types of services delivered	List of items to check-off services delivered during a visit; not published or standardized.	(just an example)	Services log [pdf]
Client satisfaction survey	Client satisfaction	Closed- and open-ended questions about client's perception of services; done at post-test; not published or standardized.	(just an example)	Client satisfaction survey [pdf]