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PARENTAL MONITORING/AWARENESS
NATIONAL SURVEY OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT WELL-BEING
Measure: Parental Monitoring Scale (Child Survey Instrument)
Background
The Parental Monitoring Scale used in the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW) was adapted by the Use, Need, Outcome, and Costs in Child and Adolescent Populations Steering Committee (Dowd et al., 2002) from the original measure created by Dishion, Patterson, Stollmiller, and Skinner (1991). The current document makes a differentiation between “monitoring” (i.e., active pursuit of child information) and “awareness” (i.e., what parents knows, devoid of details of how the information was obtained). As defined in the current document, we consider this scale to tap both awareness and monitoring.
The NSCAW was funded and administered by the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The study has been conducted through collaboration between staff at the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Caliber Associates, and the University of California at Berkeley.
Population Assessed
Children ages 10 and older were assessed using the parental monitoring scale. Overall, the two NSCAW sample components are made up of 6,227 children; 5,501 of those children had contact with the child welfare system within the 15-month period beginning in October 1999. At the time of sampling, the children ranged in age from birth to 14 years old; infants, children who have been abused sexually, and children who are receiving services were oversampled. The results of the survey can be generalized to the population that comes in contact with the child welfare system in the United States. Of the larger sample, 1,704 children were assessed with the parental monitoring scale at Wave 1 and 1,750 at Wave 3.
The child protective services and long-term foster care sample components were fairly evenly distributed across the various child age categories from birth to age 14. At the time of the Wave 1 interview, just under 30 percent of the children fell under age 2. Another 21.6 percent fell between the ages of 2 and 5. Around 27 percent of the sample of children fell between the ages of 6 and 10. And 22 percent of the child sample fell between the ages of 11 and 14 at the time of the initial interview.
The racial and ethnic make-up of the combined child sample was diverse. American Indians made up 6.2 percent of the sample; Asian, Hawaiian, or other Pacific Islanders made up 2.4 percent of the sample; 35.7 percent of the sample was African American or Black; 49.6 percent of the sample was White. Across these racial groups, 17.3 percent were classified as being of Hispanic ethnic background.
Periodicity
Data for the Parental Monitoring Scale were collected at Wave 1 between November 15, 1999, and April 30, 2001, and Wave 3, between April 1, 2001, and September 30, 2002. The Parental Monitoring Scale is also included in Wave 4 data collection, which should be complete by March 31, 2004.
Subscales/Components
This information is not readily available.
Procedures for Administration
Children ages 10 and older are the source of data for the Parental Monitoring Scale. Computer-assisted personal interviewing is used to ask respondents a set of questions about how often their parent or primary caregiver is knowledgeable about their whereabouts and companions. The administration of this measure is estimated to take approximately 4 minutes.
Psychometrics/Data Quality
This information is not readily available.
Languages Available
This questionnaire module was administered in English and Spanish.
Items Included
Response categories for the following set of questions:
Never
Almost never
Once in a while
Pretty often
Very often
How often do you leave the house without telling your caregiver or without leaving a note?
How often does your caregiver know where you are when you are away from home?
How often does your caregiver know who you are with when you are away from home?
How often does your caregiver tell you what time to be home?
Before going out, how often do you tell your caregiver when you expect to be back?
How often are you left at home without an adult or sitter?
References and Source Documents
Dishion, T. J., Patterson, G. R., Stoolmiller, M., & Skinner, M. L. (1991). Family, school, and behavioral antecedents to early adolescent involvement with antisocial peers. Developmental Psychology, 27, 172–180.
Dowd, K., Kinsey, S., Wheeless, S., Thissen, R., Richardson, J., Suresh, R., Mierzwa, F., Biemer, P., Johnson, I., and Lytle, T. (2003, September). National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being: Combined Waves 1–3 data file user’s manual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect.
Dowd, K., Kinsey, S., Wheeless, S., Thissen, R., Richardson, J., Mierzwa, F., & Biemer, P. (2002, May). National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being: Wave 1 Data File User’s Manual. National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect: Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children, Youth and Families (2001, June). National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being: Local Child Welfare Agency Survey: Report. Washington, D.C. URL: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/abuse_neglect/nscaw/index.html.
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