Student Report of Parent’s Use of Reinforcement
Last updated: May, 2005

This scale assesses the extent to which a student perceives that his or her parent (or other family member identified by the student) reinforces student behaviors, interests, and beliefs conducive to achievement during a representative parental involvement activity, monitoring or helping the student with homework. The scale was adapted from Martinez-Pons (1996) and reported in Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler (2005). It includes items in the Parental Report of Reinforcement Scale, altered as appropriate for student perspective and response.

The scale employed a four-point Likert-type scale: 1 = not true, 2 = a little true, 3 = pretty true, 4 = very true.

The scale achieved an alpha reliability of .87 when administered to a sample of 358 public school students in grades 4-6 (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 2005). 

Students were asked to respond to the following prompt:
“Dear Student, Families do many different things when they help children with school. Please think about how your family helps you with school and fill in the circle that matches what is most true for them. Thank you!”

The person in my family who usually helps me with my homework shows me that he or she likes it when I…

1.	…try to learn as much as possible.
2.	…have a good attitude about doing my homework.
3.	…want to learn new things.
4.	…check my work.
5.	…understand how to solve problems.
6.	…organize my schoolwork.
7.	…find new ways to do my work when I get stuck.
8.	…stick with a problem until it gets solved.
9.	…work hard on my homework.
10.	…keep working on my homework even when I don't feel like it.
11.	…ask the teacher for help.
12.	…explain what I think to the teacher.
13.	…explain what I think about school to him or her.

References:

Hoover-Dempsey, K.V., & Sandler, H.M. (2005). Final Performance Report for
OERI Grant # R305T010673: The Social Context of Parental Involvement: A
Path to Enhanced Achievement. Presented to Project Monitor, Institute of
Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, March 22, 2005.

Martinez-Pons, M. (1996). Test of a model of parental inducement of academic self-regulation. Journal of Experimental Education, 64, 213-227.