Malaysian parent ratings of the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire – short form: factor structure and invariance across girls and boys and mothers and fathers

Objective: The short version of the Parent-Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (Parent-PARQ/S; Rohner, 2005) measures current parental acceptance and rejection of their children. It has four scales measuring coldness/lack of affection, hostility/aggression, indifference/neglect, and undifferentiated rejection. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Parent-PARQ/S.

Design: A sample of 1,382 Malaysian parents completed the Parent-PARQ/S.

Results: Confirmatory factor analysis supported a slightly modified version of the proposed 4-factor model (i.e., item number 13 reallocated to coldness/lack of affection factor instead of the proposed indifference/neglect factor). Cronbach’s α coefficients of the factors in this model ranged from .65 to .77, and the factors correlated significantly and positively with measures of child problem behaviors. Multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated support for invariance across parent ratings of their female and male children, and between mother and father ratings of their children.

Conclusion: The findings indicate good support for the psychometric properties of the Parent-PARQ/S in a Malaysian sample.