Development of Family Adjustment Test

The present investigation was aimed at development of a Family Adjustment Scale for assessment of attitude towards family members and the accompanying perceptions of harmony/friction in family relationships. To measure family adjustment of the adolescents, the items were generated after reviewing literature on different parenting styles and their impact on development of the child. The researcher undertook to devise a Likert-type five-point scale. The five responses ranged from Always to Never. To avoid response set bias both positive and negative statements were included. To study the attitude of the respondents towards different family members as well as their inter-parental relationships 200 items were formulated. These items were reviewed and discussed by the experts in several sessions till they arrived at a consensus of about 70 items to be included in the scale, called Family Adjustment Scale. Maximum possible score on this scale is 280 and minimum score is 56. High scores on the scale show maladjustment, whereas low scores are indicative of good adjustment of the individual within his/her family setup.\ud The Scale was administered to 100 boys and 100 girls, randomly selected from two schools of Peshawar University. To determine validity of the scale item-total correlation was calculated. This data was subjected to factor analysis. All items having a factor loading less than 0.3 were eliminated. As a result III items were eliminated from the scale. The remaining 56 items show 'significantly high correlation with the total score indicting high internal consistency of the Scale. Factor analysis yielded six factors that served as a basis for construction of six sub scales of Family Adjustment Scale. To demonstrate convergent validity of the present scale, another similar scale, Index of Family Relations was also administered on all the respondents. The resultant high correlation (0.882) between Family Adjustment Scale and Index of Family Relation is a strong evidence of convergent validity of Family Adjustment Scale. \ud To determine discriminant validity of the scale it was administered to a sample of 100 psychiatric patients. Significant differences between the scores of two groups yield adequate evidence of discriminant validity of the scale. \ud Alpha coefficient and split half reliability of the present scale were calculated, both being significantly high (P < 0.000). These findings demonstrate that Family Adjustment Scale is valid and reliable scale. \ud In the final stage norms for Family Adjustment Scale were developed. Keeping in view the importance of size and representativeness of sample for standardization purpose, the Scale was administered to 1000 adolescents including an equal number of boys and girls representing the target population. For the present scale norms were expressed in terms of Percentiles which are not only easy to comprehend but have universal applicability