Alabama Parenting Questionnaire

Several studies have shown that positive parenting practices favorably influence a child’s personality. In contrast, negative parenting is associated with psychopathological conditions, aggressive behavior, poor school performance, and poor social skills among children. Alabama parenting questionnaire (APQ: Shelton et al., J Clin Child Psychol 25:317–329, 1996) is a 42-item scale to assess parents’ parenting practices with school-age children (5–18 years). The scale consists of five subscales: involvement, positive parenting, poor monitoring/supervision, inconsistent discipline, and corporal punishment. In the present study, we tested the psychometric properties of the Tamil version of the APQ (APQ-T) in the Indian cultural context using a sample of 680 married parents. The CFA showed that a 29-item, 5-factor solution fits the data well (χ2 (361) = 1164.26; CFI = 0.899; RMSEA = 0.057; SRMR = 0.058). The measurement invariance analysis indicated that the APQ-T demonstrated dyadic invariance for factor structure and loading. In addition, the APQ-T showed a moderate correlation between dyadic adjustment and dyadic coping, indicating convergent validity. In the present study, the alpha coefficient was 0.89 for husbands and 0.90 for wives. We conclude that the APQ-T is good for use in the Indian cultural context.