Parents’ Social Validity Appraisals of Early Childhood Intervention Practice Guides

Carl J Dunst

doi:10.5539/jedp.v7n2p51

Abstract

Findings from three field-tests of parents’ ratings of early childhood intervention practice guides are reported. Results from the first field-test were used to inform changes to the practice guides in the second field-test, and results from the second field-test were used to inform changes to the practice guides in the third field-test. Parents’ judgments of the practice guide designs and their social validity appraisals of the practice guide intervention activities and child outcomes were correlated with parent-informed improvements in the intervention materials. The results add to the knowledge base in terms of how parent-informed improvements to the practice guides are related to product design judgments and the social validity appraisals of the importance and acceptability of early childhood intervention materials.

Highlights

Childhood intervention includes the learning experiences and opportunities used with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers to promote and enhance the children’s development (Dunst & Espe-Sherwindt, 2017; Groark, Eidelman, Maude, & Kaczmarek, 2011; Guralnick, 2016; McWilliam, 2015)
The fit of the hypothesized model to the pattern of relationships among the field-test variables in the exploratory structural equation model were evaluated by the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Root Mean Square Residual (RMSR), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and Incremental Fit Index (IFI)
Follow-up effect size calculations showed that the effect sizes for the parents’ social validity appraisals of the practice guide intervention activities was d = .46 for Field-Test 1 vs. Field-Test 2 and d = .49 for Field-Test 1 vs. Field-Test 3

Summary

Introduction

Childhood intervention includes the learning experiences and opportunities used with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers to promote and enhance the children’s development (Dunst & Espe-Sherwindt, 2017; Groark, Eidelman, Maude, & Kaczmarek, 2011; Guralnick, 2016; McWilliam, 2015). Among the many reasons parents use or do not use early childhood intervention practices with their children are their beliefs about the importance and acceptability of the practices and the intended child outcomes of the practices (e.g., Dunst, Trivette, Prior, Hamby, & Embler, 2013b; Reimers & Wacker, 1988) These types of beliefs or subjective judgments have been described as social validity appraisals (Foster & Mash, 1999). As noted by Strain, Barton, and Dunlap (2012), an intervention practice is not likely to be used by a parent (or a practitioner) if it is not considered worth the time and effort to use This was demonstrated in a study by Dunst, Raab, and Hamby (2016) where parents’ social validity appraisals of interest-based child language learning practices were related to the fidelity of use of the practices, where fidelity of use of the practices in turn was related to improvements in the children’s language development

Methods

Results

Conclusion