Multiple dimensions of family engagement in early childhood education: Evidence for a short form of the Family Involvement Questionnaire

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Highlights

  • Confirmatory analysis of the FIQ-Short Form (FIQ-SF) replicated the three dimension from the original FIQ.

  • Concurrent measures of parental satisfaction supported the validity of the three FIQ-SF dimensions.

  • Family demographic variables supported the validity of the three FIQ-SF dimensions.

  • Children's literacy and mathematics skill levels were positively correlated with Home-based Involvement on the FIQ-SF.

Abstract

The primary aim of this study was to develop and validate a short form of the 42-item Family Involvement Questionnaire (FIQ) for use in preschool. Empirical evidence derived from a representative sample of preschool programs in a large city in New York State with the original version of the FIQ was used to select the items for a 21-item short form. A representative sample of 590 Head Start families was also identified from a large Head Start program in Pennsylvania to serve to validate the short form. Confirmatory factor analysis of the short form substantiated the three robust dimensions of family involvement from the original FIQ. Concurrent measures of parental satisfaction and assessments of children's literacy and mathematics skills along with an examination of family demographic variables supported the validity of the confirmed dimensions. Implications for the use of this multidimensional, short form of family involvement in large-scale program evaluation were discussed.

Section snippets

Development of FIQ-Short Form

To develop the FIQ-SF, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted on a representative sample of families drawn from early childhood programs in a large city in New York State (Taylor et al., 2010). These programs were using the 42-item FIQ as part of their routine data collection. This development sample (N = 527) was 51% male, 22% Caucasian, 51% African-American, 21% Hispanic, and 7% of other ethnic backgrounds, according to self-reports. All participants were parents of children ages 3–4

Participants

The validation sample to confirm the factor structure of the FIQ-Short Form consisted of parents or primary caregivers of 590 children (48.6% girls) (Table 2). Children's ages ranged from 3 to 5 years-old with a M = 3.94 and a SD = 0.48. Participants were drawn from 40 Head Start classrooms, which were randomly selected from over 400 classrooms in a large urban school district in Pennsylvania as part of a larger research project directed by the first author. For this study, preschool classrooms

Measures

Parent Satisfaction with Educational Experiences Scale (PSEE, Fantuzzo, Perry, & Childs, 2006). This is a 12-item scale that asks primary caregivers of young children (i.e., parents, other family members, or legal guardians) to rate their level of satisfaction with their experiences and interactions with their child's early childhood education. The PSEE scale consists of three subscales that indicate parent satisfaction with Teacher Contact Experiences (α = .82), classroom contact experiences (4

Data collection

Trained research assistants conducted data collection for all phases of the study. Packets containing the FIQ-SF and PSEE were distributed to parents in each classroom. Parents who were willing to participate completed consent forms and a demographics questionnaire along with the FIQ-SF and PSEE. Research assistants collected packets as they were completed, with an overall participation rate of 85%.

The LE was administered to each individual child by a trained assessor during a single session

Data analysis

To determine the construct validity of the FIQ-Short Form, a three-dimensional confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed with EQS (Bentler, 1995). Maximum likelihood estimation for categorical data was used with the raw data matrix as input, since the FIQ-SF's 4-point Likert format is ordinal in nature (Bartholomew, Steele, Moustaki, & Galbraith, 2002). Items comprising the different dimensions of the scale were totaled, and raw scores were transformed into T-Scores by area conversion (

Construct validity

Model fit of the FIQ-SF was evaluated. The normed fit index (NFI) is .98 (Bentler, 1995); the non-normed fit index (NNFI) is .99 (Hu & Bentler, 1999); and the comparative fit index (CFI) is .99 (Bentler, 1990), and the root mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) is .048 with a 90% confidence interval ranging between .041 and .054 (Hu & Bentler, 1999). These results indicate a good model fit according to criteria from Hu and Bentler (1999): NFI > .95, NNFI > .95, and RMSE < .06. Home-School

Discussion

The primary aim of the present study was to develop and validate a shortened version of the 42-item FIQ for use in preschool. This research is in response to the need for cost-effective, scientifically based measurement for program monitoring and evaluation in early childhood education. Evidence from exploratory factor analysis of the original FIQ was used to select the items for the new 21-item short form of the FIQ. The FIQ-SF was tested systematically to avoid the pitfalls associated with

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    This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Administration for Children and Families, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, and by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (Grant Nos. P21 HD043758-01 and R01HD46168-01).

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