The present study developed the Chinese Parental Involvement and Support Scale for Preschool Children (CPISSPC) to measure parental involvement and support for preschool children. In Study 1, we conducted a literature review, open-ended interviews, a theoretical analysis, and expert interviews to create an item bank (58 items). In Study 2, 447 parents completed the item bank. Following item and Exploratory Factor Analysis, 30 items were retained. In Study 3, five new items were added to the 30-item version of the CPISSPC. A separate sample of 471 parents completed the 35-item version of the CPISSPC. After Confirmatory Factor Analysis, a final 18-item version of the CPISSPC was created with four factors: psychological support, educational support, play support, and life support. Construct validity and internal reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.88) were satisfactory. Study 4 evaluated concurrent validity (n = 318). CPISSPC scores significantly and positively correlated with perceived social support, marital gratification, and children’s self-efficacy. CPISSPC scores significantly and negatively correlated with parents’ levels of burnout and loneliness. The CPISSPC exhibits good psychometric properties and can be used as a tool to measure parental involvement and support for preschool children.

This study aimed to examine whether participation in more types of after-school tutoring for 3- to 6-year-old preschool children is more beneficial to their social behavior. The study was based on survey data collected from 823 children aged between 3 and 6 years in Beijing City, the Guangdong Province and the Jiangsu Province, China. Binary logistic regression and hierarchical multiple regression results revealed that: (1) gender, age, and family socioeconomic status were important factors that affected whether preschool children participated in after-school tutoring; (2) in terms of the types of after-school tutoring, participation in the arts and health-related activities was beneficial to the development of children’s social skills, participation in arts and science ameliorated children’s problem behavior, but participation in arts, science, and health-related activities simultaneously posed a negative impact on children’s problem behavior; (3) in terms of the breadth of participation, children’s social skills were weakly strengthened if the participation breadth is greater, but this, however, did not reduce problem behavior; (4) parental involvement and individual factors were important in determining children’s social behavior. Based on the findings of this study, we suggest that parents should carefully consider the impact of after-school tutoring on preschool children’s social behavior and choose after-school tutoring appropriately.

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