Validation of an observational tool for assessing mother-child and father-child interactions in Mara, Tanzania.

Abstract

A strong body of evidence has underscored the cross-cultural importance of nurturing parent-child relationships for promoting early child development outcomes. However, most research on parenting has predominantly relied on self-reported measures collected from mothers. Observational tools for assessing parent-child interactions from not only mothers but also fathers remains limited, especially in Majority World contexts. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of an observational tool for assessing mother-child and father-child dyadic interactions in rural Mara, Tanzania. Specifically, we conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to determine the dimensionality of the measure, tested measurement invariance by parental gender, and assessed its predictive validity with early child development outcomes. We analyzed data from 1,690 parent-child dyads (927 mother-child dyads and 763 father-child dyads) with children under 2 years of age. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed a two-factor model with good model fit and acceptable internal consistency and interrater reliability between trained coders. While the measure demonstrated configural invariance by parental gender, it did not meet the criteria for metric or scalar invariance, indicating that maternal and paternal scores cannot be directly compared. Nonetheless, regression analyses showed positive associations between mother-child and father-child interaction scores and children's later development. Our findings establish the reliability and predictive validity of this observational tool for assessing early parent-child interactions in rural Tanzania. Future research directions and methodological considerations for using this observational tool with both mothers and fathers in Majority World countries are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).