This art icle was downloaded by: [ Colorado St at e Universit y] , [ David MacPhee]

On: 01 July 2014, At : 10: 42

Publisher: Rout ledge
I nform a Lt d Regist ered in England and Wales Regist ered Num ber: 1072954
Regist ered office: Mort im er House, 37- 41 Mort im er St reet , London W1T 3JH,
UK

European Journal of
Developmental Psychology
Publicat ion det ails, including inst ruct ions f or aut hors
and subscript ion inf ormat ion:
ht t p: / / www. t andf online. com/ loi/ pedp20

The Portuguese version of

the Knowledge of Infant
Development Inventory-P (KIDI-
P)
a b
Luiza Nobre-Lima , Maria da Luz Vale-Dias , Tânia Vit al
c b d
Mendes , Liset e Mónico & David MacPhee
a
Facult y of Psychology and Educat ional Sciences,
Cent ro de Invest igação do Núcleo de Est udos e
Int ervenção Cognit ivo-Comport ament al (R&D Unit ),
Universit y of Coimbra, Coimbra, Port ugal
b
Facult y of Psychology and Educat ional Sciences,
Inst it ut o de Psicologia Cognit iva, Desenvolviment o
Vocacional e Social (R&D Unit ), Universit y of Coimbra,
Coimbra, Port ugal
c
Facult y of Psychology and Educat ional Sciences,
Universit y of Coimbra, Coimbra, Port ugal
d
Depart ment of Human Development and Family
St udies, Colorado St at e Universit y, Fort Collins, CO,
USA
Published online: 25 Jun 2014.

To cite this article: Luiza Nobre-Lima, Maria da Luz Vale-Dias, Tânia Vit al Mendes,
Liset e Mónico & David MacPhee (2014): The Port uguese version of t he Knowledge
of Inf ant Development Invent ory-P (KIDI-P), European Journal of Development al
Psychology, DOI: 10. 1080/ 17405629. 2014. 929941

To link to this article: ht t p: / / dx. doi. org/ 10. 1080/ 17405629. 2014. 929941

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTI CLE

 Taylor & Francis m akes every effort t o ensure t he accuracy of all t he
inform at ion ( t he “ Cont ent ” ) cont ained in t he publicat ions on our plat form .
However, Taylor & Francis, our agent s, and our licensors m ake no
represent at ions or warrant ies what soever as t o t he accuracy, com plet eness, or
suit abilit y for any purpose of t he Cont ent . Any opinions and views expressed
in t his publicat ion are t he opinions and views of t he aut hors, and are not t he
views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of t he Cont ent should
not be relied upon and should be independent ly verified wit h prim ary sources
of inform at ion. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, act ions,
claim s, proceedings, dem ands, cost s, expenses, dam ages, and ot her liabilit ies
what soever or howsoever caused arising direct ly or indirect ly in connect ion
wit h, in relat ion t o or arising out of t he use of t he Cont ent .
Downloaded by [Colorado State University], [David MacPhee] at 10:42 01 July 2014

This art icle m ay be used for research, t eaching, and privat e st udy purposes.
Any subst ant ial or syst em at ic reproduct ion, redist ribut ion, reselling, loan, sub-
licensing, syst em at ic supply, or dist ribut ion in any form t o anyone is expressly
forbidden. Term s & Condit ions of access and use can be found at ht t p: / /
www.t andfonline.com / page/ t erm s- and- condit ions
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2014.929941

Developmetrics
The Portuguese version of the Knowledge of Infant
Development Inventory-P (KIDI-P)

Luiza Nobre-Lima1, Maria da Luz Vale-Dias2,

Downloaded by [Colorado State University], [David MacPhee] at 10:42 01 July 2014

Tânia Vital Mendes3, Lisete Mónico2, and David MacPhee4

1
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Centro de Investigac ão do
Núcleo de Estudos e Intervenc ão Cognitivo-Comportamental (R&D Unit),
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
2
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Instituto de Psicologia
Cognitiva, Desenvolvimento Vocacional e Social (R&D Unit), University of
Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
3
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra,
Coimbra, Portugal
4
Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Colorado State
University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

Several studies show that parental knowledge about child development and
education is relevant to parenting actions. Considering that the lack of assessment
instruments specific to this domain in Portugal is an obstacle to cross-cultural
research and programme evaluation, the objective of this study was to make
available a Portuguese version of the Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory-P
(KIDI-P). This inventory (58 items) allows for the calculation of three summary
scores (Attempted, Accuracy and Total) that reflect correctness and confidence in
one’s knowledge. The Portuguese version of the KIDI-P confirmed a
unidimensional structure and revealed good internal consistency (a ¼ .89). In a
sample of 252 mothers and fathers, educational level showed to be related to
KIDI-P scores, unlike parents’ sex and age.

Keywords: Parental knowledge; Child development; Knowledge of Infant

Development Inventory-P.

Correspondence should be addressed to Luiza Nobre-Lima, Faculty of Psychology and

Educational Sciences, Centro de Investigac ão do Núcleo de Estudos e Intervenc ão Cognitivo-
Comportamental (R&D Unit), University of Coimbra, Rua do Colégio Novo, 3001-802 Coimbra,
Portugal. Email: [email protected]

q 2014 Taylor & Francis

 2 NOBRE-LIMA ET AL.

An important assumption underlying parental beliefs research is that parental

knowledge about child development influences the way parents understand
the behaviour of their children, parenting actions and, consequently, child
development (Bornstein, Cote, Haynes, Hahn, & Park, 2010; Goodnow,
1988; Goodnow & Collins, 1990; Sigel & McGillicuddy DeLisi, 2002). It has
been postulated that further research on parents’ knowledge about
development can contribute to better understanding the origins and
variability of parental beliefs and also of the relation between these beliefs
Downloaded by [Colorado State University], [David MacPhee] at 10:42 01 July 2014

and parents’ child-rearing behaviours. The expansion of knowledge about the

diversity of factors that influence parental behaviour also is useful for the
development of theoretical frameworks for interventions with parents
(Barros & Santos, 2006).
Research in this field is enriched if it considers the influence of social and
cultural factors on the ideas parents have about child development and also on
their rearing practices, which calls for culturally adapted versions of
instruments already used in research. Once available, these measures
represent important assets to cross-cultural comparisons. Given these
considerations, the main goal of this study was to make available to
Portuguese parents a measure to gauge their knowledge about child
development, namely the Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory-P
(KIDI-P; MacPhee, 2002), thus enhancing the ability to conduct studies from a
cross-cultural perspective.

METHOD
Participants
The sample comprised 252 parents (42.1% fathers and 57.9% mothers) of
children 3– 6 years old, belonging to the population of parents with children
attending preschool and the first year of primary school. Participants were
recruited from three preschools and three primary schools in a region at the centre
of Portugal, randomly selected from a list of institutions that in a previous contact
with all the schools in this region expressed a willingness to collaborate.
Inventories were left by the researchers with the School Director, who distributed
one to each child. Mother –father dyads were not included in this study. Half of
the total number of inventories was addressed to mothers and the other half to
fathers. The rate of valid responses was 27.4% (920 inventories distributed, 263
returned and 11 were invalid). All parents were between 22 and 51 years of age
(M ¼ 37.4, SD ¼ 5.5) and came from diverse educational backgrounds. Most of
them were in a marital relationship (74.6%) and were of middle socioeconomic
status (56.3%).
 PORTUGUESE VERSION OF THE KIDI-P 3

Instrument
The Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory-P (KIDI-P), originally
developed by MacPhee in 1981 and revised in 2002, is a self-report instrument
formed by a unidimensional scale of 58 items. The KIDI-P provides broad
coverage of information about early development and was designed to assess a
person’s factual knowledge of parental practices, child developmental processes
and norms of child behaviour in the age range from 2 to 6 years old (MacPhee,
Downloaded by [Colorado State University], [David MacPhee] at 10:42 01 July 2014

2002). Although it does not contain subscales, the item content was based on a
conceptually derived blueprint that included domains of norms and milestones,
developmental principles, parenting and health and safety.
Responses to KIDI-P items can be marked in two different ways. The first 39
items, which contain information about normative child behaviour, ask
respondents to indicate whether they agree, disagree or are unsure about
statements. In the second part (items 40– 58), if the respondents do not agree,
they indicate whether a younger or older child would be able to achieve a
particular milestone.
Responses to KIDI-P are scored as correct, incorrect or not sure according to
an answer key that is provided. Three summary scores can be calculated:
Attempted, Accuracy and a Total score. Attempted reflects the frequency with
which respondents choose the “Not Sure” option and is related to confidence in
one’s knowledge. Accuracy is the proportion of correct answers where “Not
Sure” is not checked and represents exposure to research-based normative
information about preschoolers. A Total score is the product of Attempted and
Accuracy, and it reflects the percentage of correct answers out of all items on the
KIDI-P.

Procedures
The process of translation and adaptation of KIDI-P followed the usual
procedures described in the literature (e.g., Behling & Law, 2000). The final
Portuguese version of KIDI-P kept the same 58 items as the original inventory,
with the tripartite response format (agree, disagree or not sure) for all of them,
including the milestone items (40 –58). This decision was based on the
assumption that a unique response format is required to conduct, through
confirmatory factor analysis, the validation of the unifactorial structure of the
inventory proposed by the author. In a previous factor analysis, Schreiber (2001)
tried to validate a model of four domains conceptually derived by MacPhee, but
the best fit (acceptable but not ideal) of this model was obtained by omitting all
norms and milestones items, which are considered central to the KIDI’s validity
by its author. Given these results and the correlational analysis between domains
conducted by MacPhee (2002), the author concluded that those domains are
significantly interrelated and that KIDI measures a single latent construct.
 4 NOBRE-LIMA ET AL.

Despite the change in the response options made to the Portuguese version, which
was necessary to conduct a factor analysis of the KIDI-P, the scores provided in
the original inventory can still be calculated by converting “younger/older”
responses to “disagree”. Therefore, cross-cultural comparisons are still possible.
The factorial validity of KIDI-P was determined by a categorical principal
components analysis (CATPCA) using the variable principal normalization
method. This procedure is based on an optimal scaling approach, which assigns
numerical quantifications to the categories of the qualitative variables and allows
Downloaded by [Colorado State University], [David MacPhee] at 10:42 01 July 2014

the use of standard methods of numerical analysis (Meulman, 1992). The

numerical values assigned to each class of the original variables of KIDI-P were
obtained by the alternating least square method (Groenen, Van Os, & Meulman,
2000). The criteria for retaining the components were an eigenvalue greater than
1 and the Scree plot. The internal consistency of each component was measured
with Cronbach’s a, calculated with the CATPCA. All the analyses were
performed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (V. 20; IBM SPSS,
Chicago, IL, USA).

RESULTS
Using the standard of an eigenvalue higher than 1 and the information provided
by the Scree plot, the best factor solution for the 58 items is one component that
accounts for 13.21% of the total variance. Although the proportion of total
variance explained is low, this component is the only one that explains more than
10% of the total variability in the 58 KIDI-P items (eigenvalue 7.66). The
remaining components with an eigenvalue higher than 1 explained between
1.75% and 7.47% of the variance. The latter proportion (Factor 2) had an
eigenvalue of 4.34; however, the discrimination measures for the 58 items
indicate only item 44 as loading on Factor 2 (score difference from
Factor 1 ¼ .127). The remaining items loaded on Factor 1 or did not have
sufficient discriminations scores. Furthermore, reliability coefficients are low for
the factors other than Factor 1 (Cronbach’s a between .02 and .78) and they were
not discriminated in the Scree plot. Although the proportion of total variance for
the unifactorial solution is low, the Cronbach’s a is high (a ¼ .89; Nunnally,
1978); it is similar to values obtained in other studies (Hamilton & Orme, 1990;
Ribas & Bornstein, 2005; Ruchala & James, 1997; see MacPhee, 2002), with
coefficients ranging from .80 to .86, and is slightly higher than the original
version’s a ¼ .82 (MacPhee, 2002). In terms of average scores on the KIDI-P
indexes (Attempted, Accuracy and Total), the mean for the Total index was .63
(SD ¼ .10), reflecting a fair mastery of developmental knowledge. The
Attempted score (M ¼ .86, SD ¼ .012) was higher than the Accuracy score
(M ¼ .73, SD ¼ .07), t(251) ¼ 13.99, p , .001. The Total score was similar to
averages obtained from US mothers who were diverse in socio-economic status
(MacPhee, 2002). No significant differences were found between fathers and
 PORTUGUESE VERSION OF THE KIDI-P 5

mothers on the Attempted, t(250) ¼ .136, Accuracy t(250) ¼ 1.386 and Total
scores, t(250) ¼ .975, p . .166. Also, parents’ age (three age groups: 22– 30,
31 –40 and 41– 51 years old) was unrelated to KIDI-P scores, F(2, 249) ¼ .36
(MSE ¼ .014), 1.99 (MSE ¼ .005) and 1.80 (MSE ¼ .009), p . .10, for
Attempted, Accuracy and Total scores, respectively.
Related to differences by educational level (1 ¼ primary education to
7 ¼ master’s/Ph.D.), parents with greater education had higher Total scores, F(6,
245) ¼ 2.34, MSE ¼ .009, p ¼ .032, h 2 ¼ .05, which were due to differences on
Downloaded by [Colorado State University], [David MacPhee] at 10:42 01 July 2014

the Accuracy score, F(6, 245) ¼ 5.83, MSE ¼ .005, p , .001, h 2 ¼ .13. Tukey
Honestly Significant Difference post-hoc analyses revealed that the significant
differences were attributable to lower scores obtained by parents with a primary
education as compared to (a) parents with a professional course, (b) graduated
from secondary school or (c) with a graduate degree (mean differences ¼ 2 .13,
2 .10 and 2 .13, respectively, p , .03).

DISCUSSION
The KIDI-P adaptation process revealed a culturally adequate translation, with a
format that was easy for parents to understand and comprehensible to individuals
with different educational levels. The inventory is simple to administer, evaluate
and interpret.
The Portuguese version of this measure conforms to a unidimensional
structure as assumed in the original instrument. Although not accounting for a
high proportion of the total variance, this instrument has shown a good reliability.
One possible explanation for the low proportion of the variance explained by the
unidimensional solution is that the dichotomous response format on the KIDI-P
has as a consequence a limited variability on the items; for example, on 29 items,
one of the response options was endorsed by at least 70% of the participants.
Although Schreiber’s (2001) study found mothers to have higher scores than
fathers, in the current study, no sex differences were found in KIDI-P scores.
Schreiber argued that differences between parents can be attributed to mothers’
greater hands-on experience. However, results from the current investigation are
consistent with recent trends for fathers to be more involved in rearing their
children beginning at birth, and to be strongly invested in their offspring’s
education and well-being (Hall, 2005; Lamb, 2010); thus, mother –father
differences likely are diminishing.
In our sample, parents’ age was unrelated to KIDI-P scores. Although some
previous studies (MacPhee, 2002) suggest that older mothers have higher scores,
the comparisons typically were made with adolescent mothers, who were not
included in the present study. Finally, parents with higher academic degree have
been found to be more knowledgeable about child development than those with
less academic attainment, which is consistent with other studies as discussed in
Bornstein et al. (2010). In sum, the findings indicate the KIDI-P to have good
 6 NOBRE-LIMA ET AL.

psychometric properties, allowing it to be used with samples of Portuguese

parents. Nevertheless, future studies should be conducted with larger samples in
order to test temporal stability as well as convergent and construct validity.

Supplemental data
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.
Downloaded by [Colorado State University], [David MacPhee] at 10:42 01 July 2014

Manuscript received 6 December 2013

Revised manuscript accepted 26 May 2014
First published online 24 June 2014

REFERENCES
Barros, L., & Santos, M. C. (2006). Significac ões sobre parentalidade e bons-cuidados: Como pensam
os pais? In M. C. Taborda Simões, M. T. Machado, M. L. Vale Dias, & L. Nobre Lima (Eds.),
Psicologia do desenvolvimento. Temas de investigac ão (pp. 95 –115). Coimbra: Almedina.
Behling, O., & Law, K. (2000). Translating questionnaires and other research instruments: Problems
and solutions (Sage University Papers Series on Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences,
series no. 07-131). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bornstein, M. H., Cote, L. R., Haynes, O., Hahn, C., & Park, Y. (2010). Parenting knowledge:
Experiential and sociodemographic factors in European American mothers of young children.
Developmental Psychology, 46, 1677–1693. doi:10.1037/a0020677
Goodnow, J. J. (1988). Parents’ ideas, actions and feelings: Models and methods for developmental
and social psychology. Child Development, 59, 286–320. doi:10.2307/1130312
Goodnow, J. J., & Collins, W. A. (1990). Development according to parents. The nature, sources, and
consequences of parents’ ideas. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Groenen, P. J., Van Os, B. J., & Meulman, J. J. (2000). Optimal scaling by alternating length-constrained
nonnegative least squares, with applications to distance based analysis. Psychometrika, 65, 511–524.
Hall, S. (2005). Change in paternal involvement from 1977 to 1997: A cohort analysis. Family and
Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 34, 127–139.
Hamilton, M. A., & Orme, J. W. (1990). Examining the construct-validity of 3 parenting knowledge
measures using LISREL. Social Service Review, 64, 121–143.
Lamb, M. (Ed.). (2010). The role of the father in child development (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
MacPhee, D. (2002). Manual: Knowledge of infant development inventory. Unpublished manuscript,
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO.
Meulman, J. (1992). The integration of multidimensional scaling and multivariate analysis with
optimal transformation of the variables. Psychometrica, 57, 539–565.
Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric theory. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Ribas, R., & Bornstein, M. (2005). Parenting knowledge: Similarities and differences in Brazilian
mothers and fathers. Interamerican Journal of Psychology, 39, 5 –12.
Ruchala, P. L., & James, D. C. (1997). Social support, knowledge of infant development, and maternal
confidence among adolescent and adult mothers. Journal of Obstetrical, Gynecological, and
Neonatal Nursing, 26, 685 –689.
Schreiber, M. A. (2001). Confirmatory factor structure of a measure of knowledge of child
development (Unpublished Master’s thesis). Middle Tenesse State University, Murfreesboro, TN.
Sigel, I. E., & McGillicuddy-DeLisi, A. V. (2002). Parent beliefs are cognitions: The dynamic belief
systems model. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Being and becoming a parent
(pp. 485–508). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.