A Systematic Review of Paternal Involvement Scales

Background and Purpose: The extent literature suggests paternal involvement and their idea of parenting is critical to child outcomes. The operationalization and conceptualization of paternal involvement has evolved over the past three decades. In the mid-eighties, paternal involvement was conceptualized and operationalized using three dimensions: direct interaction, accessibility, and ultimate responsibility. The nineties saw these three dimensions built upon to include three overlapping domains and factors that moderated father involvement. A few years later, paternal involvement was operationalized with four main constructs: 1) time spent with child, 2) warmth exhibited through actions, 3) monitoring and control, and 4) responsibility. During the early 2000’s, a composite of paternal involvement combined seven items into a single scale. More recently, researchers proposed a revised and re-conceptualized model of paternal involvement which contained three main components (positive engagement activities, warmth and responsiveness, and control) and two secondary components (indirect care and process responsibility).

Methods: A systematic search was conducted across eight databases (PROQUEST, EBSCO, Dissertations & Theses @ UTA, JSTOR, MEDLINE, PQDT Global, SAGE, and Google Scholar. Additional studies were also identified by conducting a search utilizing Google, a web based search engine. The keywords for the search were “measure*, scale*, father* or paternal*, and involve*. The search included studies published between 1980 through 2017 which utilized a scale to measure father involvement. Covidence web-based review software was used to facilitate the review. Initially, 1,461 studies were identified and 1,360 studies were excluded during title and abstract screening. A cursory full-text review excluded an additional 72 studies to arrive at a final screening sample of 29 publications. The remainder representing 14 usable studies for the review.

Results: The 14 studies included more than 8,313 diverse participants that measured current or retrospective levels of paternal involvement. Studies typically conceptualized and operationalized paternal involvement similarly and used various scales to measure their definition of “father involvement.” A total of ten measures were used in the fourteen studies. Many studies used common paternal involvement scales, the Father Involvement Scale (FIS), Nurturing Father Scale (NFS), Inventory of Father Involvement (IFI), Parental Responsibility Scale (PRS), and the Father Presence Questionnaire (FPQ). The other studies used a modified Child Affect, Responsiveness, and Engagement (CARE) Scale, an adapted version of the Parental Responsibility Scale (PRS), and the Satisfaction with Father Involvement Scale (SFIS), which was modified from the original FIS.  

A little more than half (55%) of the participants were male and about half were fathers (49.7%). The mean age of fathers in the studies were 33. Most studies (n=8, 57%) had mainly Caucasian participants, followed by mostly Hispanic/Latino (n=3, 21%) participants, and one study had majority African American participants.

Conclusions and Implications: The systematic review synthesized literature to determine measures of paternal involvement. Significant racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic status gaps remain in the extant literature; however, the findings of the systematic review offer foundational evidence for assessing and targeting responsible fatherhood programs and services that provide paternal parenting skills.