Questionnaire for the Evaluation of Parents’ Educational Skills

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to propose a self-report questionnaire designed to assess the ability of parents to use appropriate educational strategies to manage the behavior of children, based on the principles of analysis and behavior modification. Methods: 180 subjects, divided into 3 groups of 60 subjects: parents of Italian nationality, Italian parents with a disabled child, parents with no Italian nationality (including 20 Filipinos, 20 Sinhalese and 20 Moroccans), were invited to fill the questionnaire. Results: The results showed that the instrument has the potential to be very suitable for the evaluation of behavioral educational skills, which are the basis of behavioral parent training programs, but also to have the possibility to check the effectiveness of the training in terms of more competent techniques learned, even after a long time. Conclusions: The results showed that the instrument has the potential to be very suitable for the evaluation of behavioral educational skills. To improve the level of confidence it will need to make some corrections, related to the revision of some item. We consider that further studies in this area should be conducted, so to broaden the range of instruments used for the assessment of educational skills.