Content Validity of a Questionnaire to Assess Parental Involvement in Education

The objective of this study was to design an instrument to evaluate parental involvement in the education of their children, and, subsequently, to investigate the content validity of that instrument. The questions on the questionnaire have been written according to the dimensions that shape the construct of parental participation: parenting, learning supervision, communication, parental networks, and relationships with the community. Further, for the study of content validity, expert judgment has been used, and the Aiken V coefficient has been estimated. The results indicate a wide degree of agreement among the judges, showing evidence of content validity regarding the criteria of clarity, relevance, and sufficiency of the questions with Aiken V values that ranged between 0.73 and 1, with confidence intervals of 99 %. It was concluded that the instrument can be used successfully in the evaluation of parental involvement in education.


Introduction
The family is the first environment in which individuals acquire the necessary tools to establish relationships with other individuals and to function in the various environments in which they spend their daily lives. In this sense, parents or those who fulfill this role play an important role in shaping the behavior of their children based on the upbringing guidelines, the values, and the expectations they transmit. Involving parents in education allows them to develop knowledge and skills to effectively support the academic, social, and emotional performance of their children, favoring a better adaptation to the school context, increasing the confidence and self-esteem of their children in the face of learning challenges (Caligiore Gei & Ison, 2018).
As school is a context in which boys and girls spend their childhood, it becomes important to investigate how the involvement of parents in education participates in the affective and socio-cognitive development of their children (Caligiore Gei & Ison, 2018;Ison, et al., 2020). Although this relationship has generated a great deal of research, it is difficult to define unequivocally what the construct of "participation" means, since it includes many aspects and dimensions.
From different theoretical frameworks of reference, the concept of parental involvement includes both structural aspects of the family, such as the socioeconomic level and the educational level of the parents, as well as all those activities or behaviors that parents carry out in connection with the school attended by their child (Calvo et al., 2016;Hornby & Blackwell, 2018;Razeto Pavez, 2016). Attendance at school events, support with homework, communication with teachers and school administrators, participation in decision-making regarding school management, among other factors, can be identified (Valdés Cuervo & Sánchez, 2016).
The family environment is estimated as the factor for the highest proportion of the students' academic performance, which largely determines individual behavior and interaction within society (Erol & Turhan, 2018;Gubbins & Otero, 2020). Several studies reveal that the participation of parents in the education of their children is associated with positive results in academic performance, as well as in the development of social skills, self-control, and cooperation (Assefa & Sintayehu, 2019;Đurišić & Bunijevac, 2017;Epstein, 2018;Puccioni, 2015). Parental involvement is associated with higher class attendance, better results in school evaluations, higher graduation rates from higher school levels, and lower grade repetition (Assefa & Sintayehu, 2019;LaRocque et al., 2011). Phillipson and Phillipson (2012) consider that many of the dimensions of the family environment influence indirectly; in other words, they do not directly affect academic performance, but rather on the cognitive and motivational characteristics that the learner will put into play at the time of school learning. It can then be thought that the participation of parents contributes to improving the attitudes and behaviors of their children, promoting achievement of greater self-confidence. Taking this into account, this study aims to develop a measurement instrument that allows investigating the different modes of involvement that parents exercise during the educational process of their children in our local context.

Theoretical Model of Family Participation with School
The relationship between family and school, and its impact on student learning and development, is a consolidated and important line of research in the field of psychology, sociology, and education (Gubbins & Otero, 2020;Sarmiento & Zapata, 2014). The concept of family participation in school has been modified over the years, and due to its complexity and breadth of aspects that make it up, there is no single definition that encompasses all its characteristics.
The creation of brief historical overviews of how the construct of participation has varied over time, and it can be noted that the research carried out during the 1960s focused on identifying and discussing whether the most relevant place to favor learning and student development was school or family. Later, in the 1970s, based on empirical evidence, studies confirmed that family participation in the school space was a factor of high impact on the academic success of children, so it should be considered in promoting better student performance. In the 1980s, there was an important redefinition of the construct, moving from a unidirectional conceptualization, which emphasized the way in which the family participates or can participate in school, to a more dynamic one of shared responsibilities, with an emphasis on association between family and school. Finally, the most current research complements this association with a third space that influences the development of the child: the community (Đurišić & Bunijevac, 2017;Hornby & Blackwell, 2018). It can be concluded that the family, the school, and the community are three inseparable spaces that influence the learning, adaptation, and development of students (Bronfenbrenner, 1979;Epstein & Sheldon, 2019). Based on this, various theoretical models have emerged that explain the involvement of parents in the education of their children and focus on participation as a phenomenon that can occur at different levels and dimensions. Some of these models are presented below, and it is pointed out how each one of them conceptualizes parental participation or involvement in the schooling of their children. Grolncik and Slowiaczec (1994) state that parental involvement in education can take three forms: a) behavioral: parental involvement in school activities, such as attending meetings; b) cognitive-intellectual: actions involving the child in activities that stimulate him or her intellectually, such as attending libraries or museums; and, c) personal: practices aimed at learning about the behavior and performance of the child at school. In addition, Martiniello (1999) proposes analyzing the participation of parents from four dimensions: a) Responsibility in the upbringing: which includes functions of the upbringing, care and protection of their children, and provides the conditions that allow the child to attend school; b) Teachers: parents continue and reinforce the classroom learning process at home, supervise and help their children to complete their homework and work on learning projects; c) School support agents: refers to the contributions that parents make to schools to improve the provision of services; and, d) Agents with decision-making power: parents can occupy roles in decision-making that affect school policies and operations, for example by serving on school advisory and governing councils.
As well, the model proposed by Flamey et al. (1999) includes five possible levels of parental involvement in school: a) Informative: parents seeking information about the school and the child's development in it; b) Collaborative: parents cooperating in support of activities required by the school; c) Consultative: parents, through associations, acting as advisory bodies to schools on various issues; d) Decision-making in relation to objectives, actions, and resources: at a first sub-level, parents incorporating, with the right to speak and vote, one or more representatives in the highest decision-making bodies of schools. At a higher sub-level, parents are allowed to assume responsibilities or positions at the level of administrative or pedagogical management of the school (innovative programs or projects); and, e) Effectiveness control: parents taking on the role of supervising compliance with the educational project and school management.
Furthermore, Fantuzzo et al. (2004) consider that parental participation can be classified into a) Focused at home: practices supporting curricular learning from home; b) Focused at school: involvement in school activities, such as attending events; and, c) Communication with the school: the flow of mutual information between parents, teachers, and administrators about the behavior and learning of the child. Interestingly, Epstein and Sheldon (2019) develop the theory of spheres of influence, which encompasses three contexts: home, school, and community, which overlap in a single and combined influence on children through the interaction of parents, educators, peers, and the context of belonging, so much so that the model proposed by these authors constitutes an important reference point, and forms the basis for the emergence of new theoretical models, as well as for the development of intervention programs. These authors point out six dimensions in which parents can participate in education: a) Parenting: comprising the actions carried out by the family to promote the acquisition of habits, values, and behaviors that facilitate adaptation to school; b) Communication with school: referring to the practices aimed at maintaining and sharing information with teachers and administrators about the performance of the child and school matters; c) Support for learning at home: including supervision and help in carrying out extracurricular tasks that support learning of the school curriculum; d) Decision-making: involving actions such as being part of the organizations participating in decisions related to school management; and, e) Volunteering and collaboration with the community: referring to the involvement of parents in actions aimed at using community resources to support learning and effective school operation.
Another type of distinction is the one proposed by Garreta Bochaca (2013), distinguishing between two modalities of participation in educational centers: individual and collective. Parents participate individually by attending meetings, participating in school activities, monitoring their children at school, among other places. Collectively, parents participate through parent associations and school councils.
Finally, Castro et al. (2014) distinguish between formal participation and informal participation. Formal participation is established through the explicit channels recognized in regulations, such as school councils, and associations of mothers and fathers. Informal participation involves all the tacit characteristics impregnated in educational reality, such as parental expectations, communication with children, feeling of belonging to the school, and help with homework.

Research Goal
There are two objectives under this theoretical frame of reference. One objective of this work is to design an instrument to evaluate the participation of parents in the education of their children and the other is to investigate the validity of its content.
A questionnaire has been developed, taking as a theoretical frame of reference the model proposed by Epstein and Sheldon (2019), which describes in six dimensions the characteristics of parental participation in the schooling of their children. However, it is worth clarifying that, taking into account the characteristics of participation in our population, we have proceeded by adapting the definitions for each of the dimensions considered.

Contextualization of the Instrument Application
The socio-cultural context in which families develop is one of the central factors for the transmission of norms, customs, and values towards their children (Đurišić & Bunijevac, 2017). Each socio-cultural environment supposes a set of particular sociodemographic characteristics that give rise to different psychological processes through situations and daily routines that are their own (Castillo, 2021).
This instrument was designed to be applied in urban contexts in the province of Mendoza, Argentina. Specifically, the city of Mendoza is considered one of the largest urban centers in the country, with an estimated projection to the year 2021 of 120,051 inhabitants (National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (2021). Both the houses and the apartments they inhabit are homes of acceptable quality, with high percentages of access to quality basic public services. The residents of this area form nuclear households (46.4%), single-person households (26.2%) and single-parent households (18%) (Directorate of Statistics and Economic Research, 2021). Urban households in the city of Mendoza, which do not present conditions of vulnerability, are characterized mainly by medium and high educational levels in their members, an economic capital above the poverty line and the absence of housing deficit, and more than 75% of its inhabitants are engaged in activities such as commerce, construction, industry, and education (Lucero et al., 2016). This is relevant taking into account the level of education and occupation of the adults in charge of their children that represent the better factors of sociodemographic and cultural environments (Keller, 2018). The higher the formal educational levels achieved, the greater access to economic and social resources that influence the experiences and opportunities of children during their development (Castillo, 2021;Keller, 2018). The questionnaire was developed to investigate the modalities of involvement that parents exercise in the educational process during their children's primary schooling, that is, from 6 to 12 years of age.

Construction of instrument
There were some particular steps that were proposed to develop the questionnaire. Firstly, it would allow gathering information about how parents are involved in the schooling of their children in the province of Mendoza, Argentina.
In its construction, the other following considerations were taken into account: the information obtained with each question is different from that obtained with the others, the selection of questions responds to logical criteria, asking everything relevant m know, and the interpretation of the data that it yields is analyzed independently (Morales Vallejo, 2011). Following the contributions of Morales Vallejo (2011) andEscobar-Perez andCuervo-Martinez (2008), the instrument preparation phase, these were the steps: a-Conceptualization of the construct: After having carried out a theoretical review of the subject, the participation of parents in education was defined as all those activities that they carry out to support the school learning of their children, promoting their academic success and social development. Considering the different aspects that it covers, the dimensions to be investigated were specified and defined, as follows: -Parenting: refers to all those actions that allow the adequate development of children, facilitating the satisfaction of basic needs (housing, food, hygiene, clothing, health, psychological well-being) in an environment that provides physical and emotional support to children. children as students and allow their adaptation to school.
-Supervision of learning: referring to all the actions carried out by the family to help their children in carrying out and fulfilling their homework, including those behaviors helping children to adopt study habits allowing them to achieve good academic performance.
-Communication: in a bidirectional sense, researching the communicational exchanges that arise from the family to the school and vice versa, with the aim of maintaining knowledge and permanent monitoring of academic performance, acquired learning processes, social behaviors and emotional states observed in children in both contexts. In addition, this dimension seeks to investigate how the school transmits information to parents and what modalities it uses to do so.
-Parents' network: referring to the participation of parents in the groups of parents and / or school cooperators in order to carry out support actions that contribute to the children's learning, socialization and school decision-making.
-Connection with the community: describing the ability to identify, disseminate and use existing resources and services in the community that promote the intellectual and recreational learning of the students.
b. Drafting the questions: based on the definitions of the different dimensions included in the "parent participation" construct, the questions were drawn up in terms of their own behaviors. In other words, the syntactic mode in which they were constructed was intended respond to questions based on their personal habits of participation in education. The questionnaire was made up of 46 questions distributed as follows: Parenting, 11 questions; Supervision of learning, 11 questions; Communication, 11 questions; Parent network, 8 questions; and, Connecting with the community, 5 questions.
c. Determination of the content validity method: aiming to check the degree to which an instrument reflects a specific domain. In this study, it was proposed to evaluate whether the content (the questions) of the questionnaire investigated the different dimensions encompassed by the construct "parent participation" and, furthermore, whether they were able to cover and fully deal with the dimension. One of the methods commonly used to carry out this type of validity is expert judgment. It is defined as an informed opinion of people with experience in the subject, recognized by others as qualified experts in it, and providing information, evidence, judgments, and evaluations (Escobar-Perez & Cuervo-Martinez, 2008).

d. Selection of expert judges:
The number of expert judges was determined and their characteristics defined. For this, the proposal by Delgado-Rico et al. (2012) was considered, that there must be three judges (3), as a minimum, and with respect to the characteristics, the consideration of Ortega Mohedano (2008) was considered, taking into account the existence of various factors, such as geographic area and work activity. In this way, the panel of experts was made up of five (5) Argentine judges, who were professionals with a postgraduate specialization in Education and Psychology issues. The invitation to participate was sent to all of them by email, and after acceptance, the corresponding evaluation grid was sent.
e. Questionnaire evaluation grid. The question evaluation grid was designed and sent to the participating expert judges. They were asked to rate each of the questions according to how appropriately they were formulated, taking into account the criteria of clarity, relevance, and sufficiency. Clarity assessed: the degree to which the semantics and syntactics of the questions allowed the statements to be easily understood; the relevance referred to the importance of the inclusion of the statement due to its high level of belonging to the dimension or category to be evaluated; and, finally, sufficiency showed whether the questions that belonged to the same dimension were enough to obtain its measurement. The evaluation grid provided four scoring options according to the question: non-compliance with the criterion (0), compliance at a low level (1), compliance at a moderate level (2), or compliance at a high level (3). The grid was answered during the July-November 2019, period.

Analysis of the validity of the content
In the process of construction of an instrument of measurement, the validity of content represents the first level. This level of validity considers the correspondence between the theory and the characteristics of the observed phenomenon (Urrutia et al., 2014). For the estimation of content validity, according to Sireci (1998), two approaches can be established: methods based on the judgment of experts and the use of statistical methods derived from the measurement instrument. With the data provided by the participating expert judges, Aiken's V coefficient was estimated. This coefficient seeks to quantify the agreement between judges, considering the average of grades (X) as an important indicator, but it also considers the minimum possible grade (l) and the range of possible grades (k = max-min). The value of the V can oscillate between zero and unity, and the closer it is to this, it is inferred that the agreement between the judges is greater, and, therefore, the evidence of content validity will be greater. Values to be considered valid must be greater than 0.70 (Merino & Livia, 2009).
This index allows evaluation of the relevance of each item with respect to its construct, and in this case, not only the number of categories offered to the judges but also the number of participating experts being taken into account. On these data, the degree of agreement was established based on the normal distribution and obtaining, from it, a probability associated with each item (Pedrosa et al., 2013).

Ethics statement
In order to analyze the content validity taking into account the criteria of clarity, relevance, and sufficiency of the items in the questionnaire, 5 expert judges were invited to participate in this task. The invitation to participate was sent to all of them by email, and, after acceptance, the corresponding evaluation grid was sent. This work complied with CONICET guidelines on ethical behavior in the Social Sciences and Humanities (2857/06).

Results
Here are the five dimensions that make up the construct under study, the questions, modified according to the observations of the expert judges, and the results of content validity obtained through the calculation of the Aiken coefficient V and its confidence intervals (CI) in the following tables. In the Parenting dimension, question 1 has two propositions, so it was decided to break it down into 2 questions: 1. What is a normal day in the life of your child? 2. Who deals with these tasks? (Picking things up, combing, grooming, feeding, assembling a backpack, etc.)? In this way, the daily activities carried out by the child are researched and, as well as who the natural person or responsible adult in charge of collaborating and supervising the child's performance is. In question 5, a semantic precision is made taking into account the conceptual difference of the terms "limit" and "norm". In the Supervision of learning dimension, a modification is made in the formulation of question 7. This is to allow a better understanding of the statement.  In the Communication dimension, no modifications were made. This is because they were very comprehensive. In the Parent's Network dimension, no changes were registered either, since all the questions were scored with the highest level of adjustment to the category that is intended to be investigated, both with regard to the Clarity of the statement and the Relevance of including these aspects in the questionnaire. In the Connection with the community dimension, the formulation of question 1 was modified, as suggested by one of the experts, in order to achieve a better understanding. In addition, although questions 3, 4, and 5 obtained an adequate quantitative score and an Aiken V that reflects inter-judge agreement, it was decided to eliminate them since they do not respond to the concept that is intended to be investigated.

Discussion
The participation of parents in the education of their children is considered a key aspect in the learning processes and is one of the aspects that plays a central role in the commitment that learners have with the school (Caligiore Gei & Ison, 2018;Calvo, et al., 2016;Erol & Turhan, 2018;Gubbins & Otero, 2020). This is why the present study aimed to construct a questionnaire and validate its content in order to evaluate the different modalities of parental involvement in the school education of their children.
In order to know the involvement of parents in the education of their children, it is not only enough to identify each of the dimensions that define it, but they must be properly specified. For this, the method of expert judges was used, analyzing the content validity through the Aiken V coefficient. The judges made a quantitative assessment of the questions and a qualitative contribution with which they gave guidance on the aspects to improve in the questionnaire. The quantitative assessment gives the questionnaire adequate validity taking into account the value of the Aiken V coefficient (Penfield & Giacobbi, 2004).
In relation to the qualitative contributions of the expert judges concerning the content of the questionnaire, they focused their attention both on the syntactic and semantic aspect of the statements of the questions and on the relevance of their inclusion in the dimension to be evaluated. In this way, the qualitative contributions made it possible to adjust the content and wording of the questions in order to improve the content of the instrument. It is worth highlighting the homogeneity of the contributions of the participating judges in the dimensions of parenting, supervision of learning, communication, and parent network.
In the dimensional analysis, Parenting is understood as all those actions that allow the adequate development of children, facilitating the satisfaction of basic needs (housing, food, hygiene, clothing, health, psychological well-being) in an environment that provides physically and emotionally to the children as students. Question 1 was broken down into two to differentiate towards what information the question pointed to and obtain clarity in the answers. In addition, a semantic adjustment was carried out in question 5, differentiating the concepts of "limit" and "norm". The "limit" according to the Royal Spanish Academy (2020) can be defined as the extension that someone's behavior can have, that is to say, how far a behavior can go; while the "norm" refers to the rules that must be followed or to which behaviors, tasks and activities must be adjusted. Implicitly, each norm carries a limit. Taking these concepts into account, it was decided to focus the question on the norms that parents propose to their children, which promote, to a large extent, the behavior that they will have.
In relation to the Learning Supervision dimension, a semantic adjustment was made in question 7 in order to facilitate a better clarity in the statement. That is to say, originally the item said "How do you ensure that your child has study habits?", which was modified to "What do you do for your child to acquire study habits?". No adjustments were recorded in Communication (11 stated) and Parent's Network (8 stated), observing a high level of inter-judge agreement regarding the 19 questions that address both dimensions, both in the Clarity and Relevance criteria. and sufficiency.
Investigating the dimensions of Supervision of Learning, Communication and Parents' Network implies considering those aspects that may favor or hinder the participation of parents in educational centers. The attitudes and actions that have the greatest impact on child school performance are: the expectations of parents regarding the educational future of their children; the feeling of belonging to the educational center; the co-responsibility of parents and teachers to generate effective communication about the potentialities and learning needs of children; the ability to solve problems; decisionmaking; initiative; teamwork; trust; and, respect (Assefa & Sintayehu, 2019;Boonk et al., 2018;Caligiore Gei & Ison, 2018;Gutshall, 2020).
However, something different happened in the Connection with the community dimension. In this study, a high level of agreement was not observed regarding the Relevance of the inclusion of some questions. Faced with this situation, and evaluating the definition of the dimension, the authors of the study determined to eliminate three questions that did not correspond to what the dimension was trying to measure. That is to say, the dimension refers to the ability of parents to identify, disseminate and use the resources and services existing in their community of belonging, in order to provide other intellectual and recreational learning opportunities to their student children (Đurišić & Bunijevac, 2017;Gubbins & Otero, 2020). In the challenged questions, their orientation points to inter-institutional relationships, in which the school is the protagonist in establishing contacts with other institutions, such as the municipality or the health center. It is said that, because the parents or adults in charge of the child are not the ones who participate in this type of relationship, it was decided to eliminate these questions from the present questionnaire.
At the end of the process, the questionnaire to evaluate the participation of parents in the education of their children was made up of 44 questions grouped under the following dimensions: Parenting (Items from 1 to 12), Supervision of learning (Items from 13 to 23), Communication (Items 24 to 34), Parent's Network (Items 35 to 42) and Connection with the community (Items 43 and 44).
This questionnaire offers a comprehensive vision of the parental involvement construct in education, presenting satisfactory content validity when it comes to investigating their ability to deploy efforts and actions to support and promote the education of their children. It is considered a useful tool to be administered in the Argentine school community, since the semantic adjustments made for its construction, in general, correspond to the characteristics of the family-school interaction observed in our country. In addition, and taking into account the existence of multiple family configurations and family types in the present society, this instrument is openly applicable to them, because the questions are not biased in relation to one of the genders or roles. If not, they are aimed at responsible adults who are in charge of children. Likewise, this questionnaire can not only be used to make a diagnosis about the participation of parents in the education of learners in a specific school, but based on it, innovative strategies or activities can be thought about in order to promote a greater involvement of parents in the education of their sons and daughters, increasing the family-schoolcommunity alliance (Calvo et al., 2016).

Conclusions
Based on the findings of the study, it is possible to conclude that the constructed questionnaire is a valid instrument to evaluate parental involvement in the education of their children. It is made up of five dimensions: parenting, learning supervision, communication, parental networks, and relationships with the community. It was designed to investigate the modalities of involvement that parents exercise in the educational process of their children during primary schooling, in urban contexts of the province of Mendoza, Argentina. During the school stage, children need the affective support of their parents in carrying out school tasks, to be encouraged in their academic achievements, and helped to advance in learning. This questionnaire offers a comprehensive vision of the parental involvement construct in education, presenting satisfactory content validity when it comes to investigating their ability to deploy efforts and actions for the benefit the socio-emotional development and academic success of their children in the school.

Recommendations
Given that the COVID-19 pandemic situation has modified the teaching-learning modalities and the interaction between family, school, and community, it could be interesting to deepen the study of these aspects through the application of this questionnaire, in conjunction with qualitative techniques in order to provide insight into parenting practices, expectations, and beliefs in the educational process. Knowing that the effective participation of families in education is related to a better quality of learning in their children, a second suggestion would be to identify the strengths and weaknesses in each of the dimensions proposed by the questionnaire in order to generate participation mechanisms and involvement of the different actors that intervene in an educational community.
In addition, this instrument could be of interest to identify whether or not the school generates both actions or strategies to favor and promote the participation of parents in the education of their children and their effectiveness to promote such participation. For future studies, it is suggested to take into account other variables that may influence the family's involvement in the education of the children. For example, the level of education of the parents, the expectations of the parents for the academic achievement of their children, the socio-cultural inequalities of the families and the possibilities of access to educational opportunities for the supervision and support of learning at home could be taken into account.

Limitations
It is possible to point out some limitations of the study. One aspect to consider is that this questionnaire was designed for schools in urban areas, so a pilot test should be carried out in other socio-educational contexts such as rural ones. In addition, it must be taken into account that this instrument was carried out prior to the global health emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. These aspects will probably have to be considered in future studies by adapting the questionnaire to the new educational realities.

Authorship Contribution Statement
Caligiore-Gei: Conceptualization, design, data acquisition, data analysis and drafting manuscript. Ison-Zintilini: Conceptualization, interpretation, critical revision of manuscript, securing funding, technical and material support, supervision and final approval.