Family assessment: Instrument dimensionality and correspondence across family reporters.

Abstract

Based on the contention that clarifying the psychometric foundations of family instruments is essential to the field's future progress, the current study pursued 3 major aims: examining issues of instrument dimensionality; determining the generalizability of dimensional structures across whole-family, marital, and parent-child forms; and assessing the degree to which there is correspondenc e across different members' reports. Drawing on a community sample of intact families (N = 192) and making use of a latent-variable approach, results provided support for a 3dimensional framework (Affect, Activities, and Control) in accounting for score variance on whole-family, marital, and parent-child forms. Results indicated a significant degree of correspondenc e across different members' reports of these constructs for each family subsystem. Implications of these findings are discussed, and topics in need of further research attention are identified. The field of family studies includes a range of research activities conducted by behavioral and social scientists from basic, applied, and interdisciplinary programs of study. Regardless of disciplinary identification, theoretical orientation, or substantive focus, however, all such researchers must ultimately select, revise, or develop measurement procedures in order to operationalize key family constructs they wish to investigate. It is for this reason that clarifying the psychometric foundations of family instruments is an essential prerequisite for the field's future progress.