NCJ Number
147504
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 18 Issue: 3 Dated: (March 1994) Pages: 247- 259
Date Published
1994
Length
13 pages
Annotation
The reliability and validity of a set of scales for rating the parenting behaviors of physically abusive mothers were examined in an experimental study in which 32 male and 32 female undergraduates viewed a videotape of either an abusive or matched control mother interacting with her son.
Abstract
The participants were psychology students in their first year at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Two tapes of abusive mothers, representative of the intrusive mother type, and two matched control tapes were used. The intrusive mothers issued more commands and displayed many more threats, hitting and grabbing, and disapproval than did any other group. The participants rated the mother's behavior on rating scales matching an observational coding system developed by Oldershaw, Walters, and Hall. Results revealed that average ratings of between six and eight raters displayed sufficiently high reliability. As expected, the ratings correlated with the behavior frequency data. The observers' ratings differentiated between abusive mothers and nonabusive controls, providing evidence of construct validity of the scales. These ratings can potentially be used by clinicians to assess both positively oriented and control-oriented behavioral strategies used by parents referred to parenting programs. However, clinicians should not use the rating scales for assessment purposes until further validational work has been reported. Tables and 22 references (Author abstract modified)