A re-examination of the Italian parental monitoring scale: Development, validation, gender, and school success measurement invariance

Abstract

Parental monitoring (PM) is a key construct in research on children's well-being and healthy development referring to the attention parents pay to their children's activities and whereabouts. However, existing literature suggests that the psychometric properties of its measurement tools are still perfect. For this study, a revised Italian parental monitoring scale (I-PM-R) was developed and validated with data from 835 participants (63% females), aged between 10 and 20 years old. The sample was divided into two sub-samples. One was used for parallel and exploratory factor analyses, and the other was used for confirmatory factor analysis. A total of eight factors were thus identified. The scale exhibited invariance in relation to children's gender and school success, and associations with demographic variables and school performance. The I-PM-R contributes to the need to move toward psychometric quality advances in the measurement of PM.