The Inventory of Father Involvement: A Pilot Study of a New Measure of Father Involvement

Keywords

father involvement, fathering, parenting measures

Abstract

As the study of fathering has matured in recent years, fathering scholars have recognized the need for richer, broader measures of the construct of father involvement (Hawkins & Palkovitz, 1999). In an effort to create a measure sensitive to affective, cognitive, and direct and indirect behavioral components of involvement, 100 items were initially generated. Of these, 43 were selected for the “Inventory of Father Involvement” (IFI). Fathers (N = 723) reported on “how good a job” they were doing on the 43 indicators of father involvement. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses yielded nine relatively distinct first-order factors, indicating a single, global second-order factor of father involvement. The final model confirms a shorter, 26-item version of the IFI that reflects a multi-dimensional concept of father involvement.

Original Publication Citation

Hawkins, A. J., Bradford, K. P., Christiansen, S. L., Palkovitz, R., Day, R. D., & Call, R. A. (2002). The Inventory of Father Involvement: A pilot study of a new measure of father involvement. Journal of Men's Studies, 10(2), 183-196.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2002-03-01

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/7026

Publisher

The Journal of Men's Studies

Language

English

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Family Life

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

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