Examination of the Reliability and Validity of the Japanese Version of the Parental Gatekeeping Scale

Abstract

The reliability and validity of the Japanese version developed by the present authors of the Parental Gatekeeping Scale (Puhlman & Pasley, 2017 ) was examined. Mothers ( N ＝685 ) of children attending public and private pre-schools and kindergartens in Ibaraki Prefecture completed the Parental Gatekeeping Scale and other instruments that were used to evaluate the validity of the scale, including a marital satisfaction scale, a scale measuring fathers ' involvement with and interest in child-rearing, and a scale on which each mother rated her children ' s attitudes toward their father. Useable responses were obtained from 313 of the mothers ( 45 . 7％ ). Exploratory factor analyses of the responses revealed 3 factors: " encouragement " , " control " , and " discouragement " . Cronbach ' s α for each factor demonstrated that the Japanese scale had appropriate internal consistency. The examination of the validity of the scale indicated that " encouragement " was correlated positively with the mothers ' reports of their marital satisfaction, the father ' s involvement with their children, and their children ' s attitudes toward their father. " Control " was correlated positively with the mothers ' reports of the father ' s involvement with their children and their children ' s attitudes toward their father. On the other hand, " discouragement " was correlated negatively with the mothers ' reports of their marital satisfaction, the father ' s involvement with their children, and their children ' s attitudes toward their father. These results demonstrate the concurrent validity of the Japanese version of the Parental Gatekeeping Scale.