Implementation of a Web-Based, Self-Scoring Version of the Family Assessment Device (FAD) for Parent Education

Introduction

The use of Web-based technology to enhance educational programming is increasing. New advances in Web-based applications offer opportunities to assess client needs and track educational outcomes. Increased demand for accountability by local, state, and federal partners is requiring Extension professionals to report credible results of their educational programs. This article reports on the implementation of a Web-based, self-scoring version of the Family Assessment Device (FAD) as a part of parent education to be used for needs assessment and evaluation purposes.

Goals

The goals of the Web-based family assessment are fivefold.

• First, the Web-based family assessment provides a user-friendly needs assessment tool for agents to determine the family's level of functioning. Once established, the needs of the clients can be better understood and matched with available educational programs.

• Second, the FAD's score screens high-risk participants who may be in need of a therapeutic intervention and referral for their family issues.

• Third, the self-appraisal informs the family of area of concerns within their family. This self-appraisal or raising of awareness within the family is the initial step in the learning process.

• Fourth, it provides a baseline measure or pre-test of the family's level of functioning in order to later document changes in family functioning due to the educational intervention.

• Fifth, using the assessment tool following the educational interventions provides data to compare pre- and post-test scores for programming impact purposes.

Family Functioning

Researchers have identified several key areas or characteristics that are common to successful families. Epstein, Bishop, Ryan, Miller, and Keitner (1993) have identified the following dimensions of healthy family functioning: problem-solving, communications, family roles, affective responsiveness, affective involvement, and behavior control. These dimensions are consistently found by researchers, clinicians, and family life educators to be associated with healthy family relationships (Arcus, 1997; Beavers, Hampson, & Hulgus, 1985; Epstein et al., 1993; Gottman, 1994; Olson, Russell, & Sprenkle, 1989). Families that function at h


within 
e key areas are more likely to have fewer problems and are able to deal more
ectively with problems once they arise.

Instrumentation

Selecting an instrument to measure these key dimensions of family functioning is criti
for needs assessment and evaluation. The instrum
chosen for this task was the Family Assessment Device (FAD) by Epst
Baldwin, & Bishop (1983). The FAD was used because it is a valid, reliable, instrument that measures overall family functioning in six key areas of family functioning:

• problem-solving,
• communication,
• affective involvement,
• affective responsiveness,
• roles, and
• behavior control.

Both the internal reliability and validity of the FAD have been demonstrated in prior research with Chronbach's alphas on the scales ranging from .74 to .92 (Epstein, Baldwin, & Bishop, 1983). The FAD also has adequate test-retest reliability, low correlations with social desirability, and moderate correlations with other self-report measures of family functioning, which provides evidence of concurrent validity of the scale (Miller, Epstein, Bishop, & Keitner, 1985).

Discriminative validity was also demonstrated by clinical ratings. FAD scores of families were compared to clinicians' ratings, with the results indicating that families rated by the clinicians as unhealthy also had significantly higher family mean FAD scores, representing poorer functioning (Miller et al., 1985).

Implementation on the Web

The FAD can be administered by paper and pencil or on the Web. Implementation on the Web provides Extension agents with an educational and research tool for their programming. The Web version provides a self-scoring instrument that furnishes immediate feedback to the agent and client regarding the family's self-reported areas of concerns. Furthermore, a printed copy of the results can be obtained.

A paper-and-pencil version of the instrument can be given to participants, with their answers later keyed into the computer to obtain printed feedback that can be given to participants at the next meeting. The data from the FAD is self-stored in a database for future analysis.

Implementation on the Web was accomplished with the technical assistance from Virginia Extension Information Systems. Permission was granted from the instrument authors to implement the assessment via the Web for Extension agent use only.

Piloting of the Assessment Application

A pilot of the Web-based self-assessment was conducted in conjunction with parent education programming. Parents were administered the FAD at the first session of a series of Extension parent education programs.

The FAD served as a self-report measure for individual parents, a needs assessment for the educator, and a pre-test for an outcome measure. Individual results were printed and given to the participants with an explanation of the findings. Family strengths and areas of concern were noted. The educator's tracking of the results targeted the educational experience toward the identified problematic areas.

The education intervention, in this case parent education, was conducted. At the conclusion of the 4- to 7-week educational series, parents were administered the FAD again for post-test purposes.

Technique of Data Analysis

Frequencies, Chronbach's alphas, and paired-sample t-tests were used in the analysis of the data. Paired-sample t-tests were used to determine the change between pre- and post-test scores. A paired-samples test compares sample means by calculating Student's t and tests the significance of the difference between the means (Ott, 1993). In this study, participants of the Extension sponsored parent educational series completed pre- and post-test FADs. The pre- and post-test scores from the FAD's seven subscales were compared.

Results

The sample consisted of 25 parents who completed the parent education training and both pre and post FADs. Six were males, and 18 were females. The average age of parents was 34 years of age, and ages ranged from 17 to 48 years of age. The average number of children in each family was 2.3, with the range being 1 to 4 children. Education attainment ranged from the 9th grade to master's level. Marital status was as follows: 3 single parents, 4 separated parents, 2 divorced parents, 4 remarried parents, and 12 parents married once.

Chronbach's alpha was used to computed the internal consistency of the FAD scales. The alpha coefficient for the seven FAD scales (problem-solving, communication, affective involvement, affective responsiveness, roles, behavior control, and general functioning) showed adequate internal consistency, with alpha's ranging from .69 to .86.

Regarding the pilot and data analysis, participants showed improvement in each of the seven areas of family functioning. Results of the analysis of each subscale indicate that participants increased their level of family functioning with respect to problem-solving, communication, affective involvement, affective responsiveness, roles, behavior control, and general functioning.

Paired t-tests were administered to detect statistically significant differences between the pre- and post-tests on the seven subscales. The results indicated that a statistically significant change occurred at the .05 level on five out of the seven measures. More specifically, parents improved their level of family functioning in the areas of problem-solving (.001), communications (.03), family roles (.01), behavior control (.03), and the general functioning (.00). Although not statistically significant, affective involvement (p = .11) approached significance, and mean scores improved from pre- (15.75) to post-test (14.25). (Lower mean scores represent healthier functioning.) Affective responsiveness (p = .50) was not statistically significant, but a small improvement was seen on mean scores from pre- (11.52) to post-test (11.2).

Discussion and Implications

The analysis provides evidence that the parenting education intervention improved family functioning in all seven areas. In addition, the application of a Web-based self-scoring instrument for needs assessment and evaluation purposes proved to be a successful pilot. As stated earlier, a goal of a self-scoring family assessment tool implemented on the Web was to gain a better understanding of client needs and give agents and the specialist a systematic way to assess family functioning.

The Web-based environment allowed clients to receive virtually immediate feedback regarding their areas of concerns within the family. The Web-based FAD provided a needs assessment for the family and educator to use to determine which educational programs would be beneficial for the family. In addition, a group composite of the overall participants' needs can be determined to assist the educator in targeting educational experiences that would be most beneficial for the participants.

The FAD provided the educator with a valid, reliable instrument to assess programming outcomes for clients and reporting purposes. The FAD's scores screen high-risk participants who may be in need of a therapeutic intervention and referral for their family issues. Finally, for evaluation purposes, the Web-based version of the FAD proved to be an effective tool to document changes in family functioning due to the parenting educational intervention. Results indicated an improvement in all areas of family functioning and a statically significant change in five of seven measures.

References

Arcus, M.E. (1987). A framework for life-span family life education. Family Relations, 36: 5-10.

Beavers, W.R., Hampson, R.B., & Hulgus, Y.F. (1985). Commentary: The Beavers systems approach to family assessment. Family Process, 24: 398-405.

Epstein, N.B., Bishop, D., Ryan, C., Miller, I.W., & Keitner, G.I. (1993). The McMaster model view of healthy family functioning. In Froma Walsh (Ed.), Normal family processes (pp. 138-160). New York: The Guilford Press.

Epstein, N.B., Baldwin, L.M., & Bishop, D.S. (1983). The McMaster family assessment device. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 9: 171-180.

Gottman, J.M. (1994). Why marriages succeed or fail. New York: Simon & Schuster

Miller, I.W., Epstein, N.B., Bishop, D.S., & Keitner, G.I. (1985). The McMaster family assessment device: Reliability and validity. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 11: 345-356.

Olson, D.H., Russell, C.S., & Sprenkle, D.S. (1989). Circumplex model: Systemic assessment and treatment of families. New York: Haworth.

Ott, R.L. (1993). An introduction to statistical methods and data analysis. Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont, California.