Partners in Education Survey: validation of a brief, parent-report home-school partnership measure in Australia

High quality home-school partnership is associated with a wide range of educational, developmental and well-being outcomes in children. Despite decades of research supporting the benefits of effective home-school partnerships, there remains significant controversy in the literature around its’ conceptualisation and measurement. Most existing home-school partnership measures either only failed to capture the bi-directional aspects of this partnership or lack psychometric support. Therefore, this study aims to validate the Partners in Education Survey (PIES) as a brief, 18-item measure of the bi-directional home-school partnership. A total of 2,198 Australian parents of primary school-aged children (M = 7.92, 50.8 % male) participated in the current study. A five-factor structure was supported through achieving adequate model fit in confirmatory factor analysis which includes: home involvement, parent-teacher communication, parent-school relationship, parent-school involvement and working with the community. All subscales displayed adequate to excellent internal consistency. We found evidence supported measurement invariance for the influence of socioeconomic status and cultural diversity. The validation of the PIES will enable researchers and policymakers to more accurately assess the strength of home-school partnerships and to evaluate interventions aimed at improving these partnerships.