Measuring Parental Beliefs about the Developmental Significance of Preschool Children’s Daily Activities: the Children’s Daily Activities-Parental Beliefs Scale

Abstract

The study presents the Children's Daily Activities-Parental Beliefs (CDA-PB) scale, a newly developed instrument providing parental assessment of the developmental significance of family-based, preschool children's daily activities. These activities are considered as primary contexts for understanding children's learning and development and parental beliefs are critical for both the organization of such activities as well as parents' participation in them. Study informants were 383 mothers of preschool children attending daycare centres and kindergartens in the greater Athens area in Greece. Mothers completed a self-report questionnaire which included the CDA-PB and two other scales targeting at the report of the frequency of daily activities' occurrence and mothers' participation in them. Following a series of principal component analysis with varimax rotation the final form of the CDA-PB scale consisted of 30 items loaded on five components representing the perceived significance for certain types of activities, namely: "Household and self-care activities", "Recurrent outings", "Pre-academic activities", "Play activities", and "Home entertainment activities". In addition, inter-correlations were revealed with the other two scales. Overall, the results are compatible with empirical evidence from different cultural settings and provide initial support for the use of this scale. Limitations of the present study and future research priorities are also addressed.

Impact of the COVID-19 Quarantine on Young Children’s Family-Based Daily Activities in Greece

“…This study examined how families with young children in Greece adapted to the COVID-19 quarantine in the early days of the pandemic (April-May 2020) when very strict restrictions involving social distancing, school closure and working from home were imposed. By means of the CDA-PB scale (Petrogiannis et al, 2013), the study sought parental perceptions of the frequency of children's engagement in 5 different kinds of activities taking place in the family context as well as parents' participation in them, both before and during the quarantine. This allowed us to look for changes and continuities in family routines during a period of disruption in daily habits resulting from the pandemic, and to explore their impact on children's solo and parent-children joint activities.…”

“…Self-report data were collected by a questionnaire based on the CDA-PB Scale, an instrument developed in Greece by Petrogiannis et al (2013) which provides parental assessment of the developmental significance of family-based, preschool children's daily activities. The CDA-PB scale comprises five categories of activities, namely 'Household and Self-Care', 'Recurrent outings' (out of home social activities), 'Pre-academic activities', 'Play (indoors)' and 'Home entertainment activities' (recreational screen based activities).…”

“…The CDA-PB scale comprises five categories of activities, namely 'Household and Self-Care', 'Recurrent outings' (out of home social activities), 'Pre-academic activities', 'Play (indoors)' and 'Home entertainment activities' (recreational screen based activities). As indicated by the research of Petrogiannis et al (2013), parental perceptions of the developmental significance of daily activities, strongly influence both the occurrence of these activities in children's daily lives as well as parental participation in them. Thus, the questionnaire utilised in the present study was composed of three identical lists of the activities described above, assessing parental perceptions of (a) the frequency of occurrence of the described children's activities (referred as solo children's activities or solo) (b) the frequency of parental participation in the described activities (referred as joint parent-child activities or joint) and (c) the perceived developmental significance of these activities.…”

“…Mean frequency scores were calculated for each one of the 30 items comprising the list of activities described in the questionnaire regarding children's solo as well as parent-child joint activities, for both the period before and during the quarantine. Next, items composing the same activity category (Petrogiannis et al, 2013) were selected and their mean frequency scores were averaged in order to produce a new mean frequency score for each category of activity. Tables 1 and 2 summarize the results for children's solo and parent-child joint activities respectively.…”

“…self-care, household chores, play, learning or socialization) and the estimated necessity of provision of help or assistance, have been pointed out as important (Archbell et al, 2020;Gracia, 2018). Additionally, parental beliefs about the significance of everyday activities for child development have been identified as central in mediating the types of activities parents encourage and participate, thus influencing the nature of the activities children themselves engage in and the time spent in them (Haight et al, 1999;Harkness & Super, 2006;Harkness et al, 2011;Parmar et al, 2004;Petrogiannis et al, 2013;Rogoff et al, 1993;Tudge et al, 1999Tudge et al, , 2006Tulviste et al, 2007). Tudge et al (2006) for example, showed that children with parents, who value education, were more likely to engage in activities assumed to prepare children for schooling, such as play with academic objects and conversations with adults.…”