Measuring and Enhancing Initial Parent Engagement in Parenting Education: Experiment and Psychometric Analysis

BACKGROUND: Prevention efforts focused on parenting can prevent and reduce the rates of child internalizing and externalizing problems, and positive changes in parenting skills have been shown to mediate improvements in child behavioral problems. However, parent skills training programs remain underused, with estimates that under half of eligible parents complete treatment and even lower rates engage in preventive interventions. Moreover, there is no validated measure to assess initial engagement in parent education or skills training, which is an understudied stage of parent engagement. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to test a novel engagement strategy, exploring whether including information pertaining to the neuroscience of child development and parent skills training enhanced parental intent to enroll. In addition, a novel self-report measure, the 18-item Parenting Resources Acceptability Measure (PRAM), was developed and validated. METHODS: In a group of 166 parents of children aged 5 to 12 years, using an engagement strategy based on the Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations, we conducted a web-based experiment to assess whether the inclusion of neuroscience information related to higher levels of engagement via self-report and behavioral measures. The PRAM was subjected to an exploratory factor analysis and examined against relevant validity measures and acceptability measurement criteria. RESULTS: Three PRAM factors emerged (“Acceptability of Parenting Resources,” “Interest in Learning Parenting Strategies,” and “Acceptability of Parenting Websites”), which explained 68.4% of the total variance. Internal consistency among the factors and the total score ranged from good to excellent. The PRAM was correlated with other relevant measures (Parental Locus of Control, Parenting Sense of Competence, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, Parent Engagement in Evidence-Based Services, and behavioral outcomes) and demonstrated good criterion validity and responsiveness. Regarding the engagement manipulation, parents who did not receive the neuroscience explanation self-reported lower interest in learning new parenting skills after watching an informational video compared with parents who did receive a neuroscience explanation. However, there were no significant differences between conditions in behavioral measures of intent to enroll, including the number of mouse clicks, amount of time spent on a page of parenting resources, and requests to receive parenting resources. The effects did not persist at the 1-month follow-up, suggesting that the effects on engagement may be time-limited. CONCLUSIONS: The findings provide preliminary evidence for the utility of theory-driven strategies to enhance initial parental engagement in parent skills training, specifically parental interest in learning new parenting skills. In addition, the study findings demonstrate the good initial psychometric properties of the PRAM, a tool to assess parental intent to enroll, which is an early stage of engagement.