Investigating the validity of scores obtained with the Home and Family Questionnaire and their reliability with scores obtained with the home observation for the measurement of the environment-middle childhood

The study of home environments and their relationships to child outcomes has become common practice among researchers of child development. As such, having a reliable instrument for measuring home environments that is also cost and time efficient is of primary interest to researchers. The most widely used instrument for measuring home environments is the Home Observation Measurement of the Environment (HOME) developed by Caldwell and Bradley in 1984. Use of the HOME is prevalent among researchers, yet it is costly to implement both in time and in money. An alternative tool for home environment measurement is the Home and Family Questionnaire (HFQ) (Pierce, Alfonso, & Garrison, 1998) which is cost and time effective, and is in conceptual congruence with ecological theory. The purpose of the present study was to test the construct validity of scores obtained with the HFQ by comparing them with scores obtained with the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ) (Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 1995). The criterion validity of the HFQ was also tested by comparing scores obtained with it to children’s scores obtained with the Dynamic Inventory of Basic Literacy Skills (DIBELS) (Good & Kaminski, 2003). Finally, the reliability of scores obtained with the HFQ was tested with scores obtained with the HOME Middle Childhood version (MC-HOME). Scores as collected with the HFQ subscales of Maturity Facilitation, Parent-Child Emotional Relationship, and Child’s Use of Stimulating Materials were found to exhibit construct validity, criterion-related validity, and reliability with MC-HOME data