Identifier

etd-11112005-201715

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Experts emphasize routines as a paramount practice in successful child rearing (Fiese, 2002). Only recently, however, has empirical evidence begun to corroborate this theory. While many researchers and clinicians have documented the use of daily child routines in their parenting packages and treatment studies, none has measured the effects of child routines directly. The emergence of The Child Routines Questionnaire offered ample evidence of the importance of child routines in school-age children. Significant findings link a lack of routines to child behavior problems, poor parenting practices, and parental psychopathology (Sytsma et al., 2001; Sytsma-Jordan, Kelley, & Henderson, 2002; Jordan, 2003). These data have offered insightful correlation between routines and overall child adjustment, and parental well-being. The present study aimed to contribute to this literature by extending the CRQ to children ages one to five years through development and validation of the Child Routines Questionnaire: Preschool. An initial item pool yielded 62 items categorically grouped for expert review. After reducing the item pool to 42 items, the initial version of the scale was administered to a moderately large heterogeneous sample of mothers (n = 337). After further item elimination, a final scale of 35 items was administered to a new diverse sample of mothers (n = 175), as well as fathers (n = 51), to explore validity and additional reliability. The CRQ: P established good internal consistency, adequate test-retest reliability, and good inter-rater reliability, as well as moderate evidence of concurrent validity. As expected, the CRQ: P demonstrated a positive relationship with measures of solid family routines and positive parenting practices. Conversely, results indicated an inverse relationship between daily child routines and child behavior problems, poor child adaptability, parental stress, parent-child dysfunction, and maternal depression. The current study offered preliminary psychometric properties of the CRQ: P. Additional data are needed to further evaluate evidence of validity and reliability of the scale. The CRQ: P presents as a promising assessment tool to contribute to our general understanding of child routines in early development for both researchers and clinicians alike.

Date

2005

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Mary L Kelley

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.1152

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