Questioning the Suitability of Traditional Self-Report Family Functioning Measures for Single-Parent Families with Young Children

Abstract

Family functioning is a common interest of social science and health researchers. Most often, well-established self-report instruments are used to measure family functioning. Although these instruments have been used with families of diverse compositions, our experiences using one of the commonly used instruments, the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD), suggest that it is not appropriate for single-parent families with young children. In addition to describing the difficulties we encountered with the FAD, we discuss our experiences in relation to current research findings about the processes and effectiveness of family functioning in single-parent families. As well, we examine other frequently used self-report family functioning instruments, the results of which lead us to question the suitability of any of the commonly used self-report family functioning instruments for single-parent families with young children. We conclude by arguing for the development of family functioning instruments that are appropriate for diverse family structures and compositions.

KEYWORDS:

• family functioning
• McMaster family assessment device
• single-parent families

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of funders, participation of partners, and assistance of project staff listed on the Families First Edmonton website (http://www.familiesfirstedmonton.ualberta.ca/).

This article is an expanded version of a presentation made at the National Council of Family Relations Theory Construction and Methodology Workshop, Little Rock, Arkansas, November 2008.

Notes

The possible range of scores on both the General Functioning scale and the FAD4 are 1–4, with lower scores indicating more effective functioning.

*p ≤ .01.

The FES (Moos & Moos, 2009) was not developed from a theoretical model of family functioning. Nevertheless, several of the constructs are similar to concepts in family functioning models: cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, family organization and structure, and control.

The General Functioning scale includes 12 items that correspond with the six dimensions of the theoretical model but are different items from those included in the other six scales.

The research protocol for Families First Edmonton received approval from the Faculties of Education, Extension, and Augustana Human Research Ethics Board, University of Alberta, in November 2005.

It is important to note that the McMaster model research group acknowledges that the roles dimension in families “may vary by ethnicity, religious practice, or lifestyle” (Ryan et al., 2005, p. 33). However, they do not detail the variations, and they do not address role functioning for families that do not have a nuclear constellation.