Assessment, Statistics, and Research

Parents sometimes feel inadequate to parent. Although many enjoy parenting and delight in their children, few can deny that parenting is often a challenge. Some feel unprepared. Some enjoy their children but feel frustrated. Some feel they are less capable than other parents. The Parenting Sense of Competence scale (PSOC) consists of 17 or 16 items depending on the version. The items are rated on a scale of 1 to 6 with anchors of 1 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree. Authors: Gibaud-Wallston & Wandersman (1978) Internal consistency estimates of reliability range from the mid .70s to .80s in previous studies. Research suggests that the items can be grouped into two subscales: Satisfaction with Parenting and Efficacy. Early wording of some scale items used only the word “mother,” but these items have been revised by other researchers to refer to either mother or father (e.g., see Ohan, Leung, & Johnston, 2000). Scoring: Several items are re

Following a painful experience like those reported by women in the “me too” movement, many may work to forgive their offender to free themselves from the ongoing internal struggle caused by rehearsing the event and nursing anger. Forgiveness, of course, should not be construed as excusing, pardoning, or tolerating abuse. Neither should survivors' forgiveness of their offenders reduce the responsibility of government and business leaders to act justly and provide safeguards against future offenses. When people begin to work on forgiveness toward offenders for particularly horrific offenses like rape and murder, they may find strong emotions like anger and the desire for revenge make it seem impossible to overcome. Ev Worthington (Virginia Commonwealth University) and his colleagues have published two measures of forgiveness that divide forgiveness into two parts: Emotional and Decisional. This makes sense to me as a clinician, a scientist, and a person who, like many,

Educators, School Administrators, Mental Health workers, and parents ought to be aware of teacher stress because of the critical role teachers play all societies. High levels of stress may lead to burnout. There are several measures of teacher stress, which can help you assess and monitor stress levels. One popular measure is the Teacher Stress Inventory (TSI) revised by Schutz and Long in 1988 .  The scale uses a 5-point Likert-type scale to rate stressful situations in seven categories (an item example in parentheses): Role ambiguity (I am unclear on what the scope and responsibilities of my job are) Role stress (I find that I have extra work beyond what should be normally expected of me) Organizational management (My administrative head does not ask my opinion on decisions that directly affect me) Job satisfaction (All in all, I would say that am I am not satisfied with my job) Life satisfaction (My life is currently quite lonely) Task stress (I