Description:
The Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory
(KIDI) is a 75-item instrument that was designed to obtain
comprehensive information on parents’ factual knowledge
of parental practices, child developmental processes, and
infant norms of behavior. The KIDI is designed to be easily
accessible to persons with limited education and to be culturally
neutral. The items can also be grouped into four non-exclusive
general categories to obtain more specific information on
a person’s knowledge on infant norms and milestones,
principles of infant development, parenting, and health and
safety. The KIDI Scale is accompanied by a 17-item questionnaire
(the Catalog of Previous Experience, or COPE) assessing previous
experience with infants to correlate with knowledge level
assessed by KIDI.
Uses of Information: The KIDI may be used as an indicator
or a diagnostic tool for high-risk parents and also to evaluate
parent education programs.
Reliability: (1) Internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s
alpha): alphas were .67 and .55 for college students at pretest
and posttest, respectively, .82 for parents, and .50 for professionals.
The Guttman split-half coefficients were .60 and .57 for college
students at pretest and posttest, respectively, .85 for mothers,
and .59 for professionals. (2) Test-retest reliability: For
parents (2-week interval), the correlation coefficients were
.92 for the total score, .80 for attempted, and .91 for accuracy.
For college students (4-month interval), the coefficients
were .65 for the attempted and .47 for accuracy.
Validity: (1) Content validity:
The author conducted an extensive review of the relevant literature
and the instrument has been reviewed by parents, pediatricians,
and persons holding a Ph.D. in child psychology. (2) Construct
validity: The manual reports the results of the initial validity
studies conducted by the author. The results suggested that
persons with more experience with or knowledge about infants
were more confident in responding to the KIDI. However, persons
with formal knowledge were more accurate in their responses
than persons with informal knowledge. (3) Predictive validity:
In another study, the author found parents of developmentally
delayed children had significantly lower KIDI attempted and
accuracy scores than parents of children with normal development.
Method of Scoring: Each of the KIDI items is scored as right
(+1), wrong (-1), or not sure (0) according to an answer key
that is provided. Using formulas provided in the manual, three
summary scores are then calculated: an attempted score (percent
of items attempted, a measure of confidence), an accuracy
score (percent correct of the attempted answers), and a total
correct score (percent correct of all the KIDI items). If
the user wishes, subscale scores can be calculated for the
four general categories: (1) norms and milestone, (2) principles,
(3) parenting, and (4) health and safety.
Interpretability: No instructions provided.
Training Support: None described.
Adaptations/Special Instructions for Individuals with Disabilities:
None described.
Report Preparation Support: None described. References:
MacPhee, D. Manual: Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory.
Unpublished manuscript, University of North Carolina, 1981.
MacPhee, D. The Nature of Parents’ Experiences with
and Knowledge About Infant Development. Paper presented at
the Society for Research in Child Development, April 1983.
MacPhee, D. The Relationship Between Children’s Delayed
Development and Their Mothers’ Perceptions of Development.
Paper presented at the Southwestern Society for Research in
Human Development, March 1984.
MacPhee, D. Mothers’ Acquisition and Reconstruction
of Knowledge About Infancy. Paper presented at the Southwestern
Society for Research in Human Development, March 1984.
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