Developing a multidimensional survey of child and family health and school engagement: reliability and preliminary findings from a Long Island Sample

Children and their families continue to face many unique challenges into to 2020’s that impact their functioning at home and school. Survey research has long been utilized to generate representative samples of data to measure different aspects of children and family functioning. The current study surveyed parents of school-aged children (N = 113) residing on Long Island, New York. Scales assessing both parent and child behaviors were created to provide a single, brief, multidimensional instrument spanning domains that are typically assessed using separate, longer measures, and measures of internal consistency, descriptive statistics, and correlational analyses were utilized to examine the data. Strong internal consistency reliability was found across most scales created for the survey. Many of the parents and children in the survey were reported to experience mental health challenges including anxiety, depression, and ADHD. Parent school engagement was correlated with working and connecting. Strong correlations were demonstrated between general health and school engagement, sibling relationships, and dental health and hygiene. Behavior problems were found to be associated with domestic violence and bullying. The study yielded several important findings about the relationship between child health and child functioning at home and school. The scales developed for the survey appear to be reliable and the current data set may be useful for secondary data analysis to examine a more complex set of research hypotheses. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed.