BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Quantitative Psychology and Measurement
Construction and Validation of the Ultra-Short Version of the Parenting Scale (PS-4)
1. Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University Medical Centre, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany, Rhineland-Palatinate, 55131
2. Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland, Zürich, 8401
3. Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony, Hanover, Germany, Lower Saxony
4. Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, Lower Saxony, 04103
5. Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule Jena, Jena, Germany
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Abstract
Parenting behavior is a central determinant of childhood development and is thus deserving of more scientific attention. In the present article, we constructed an ultra-short scale for the assessment of parenting styles, the Parenting Scale 4 (PS-4). To this end, we analyzed large samples of parent-child dyads – one representative of the German general population (Sample 1), the other representative for the German federal state Lower Saxony (Sample 2). We applied an algorithm-based scale-shortening technique in Sample 1 and confirmed the resulting model in Sample 2, finding excellent model fit and – given the extreme brevity – acceptable reliability. Furthermore, we show that the model is invariant across parent and child genders. Correlations with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire remain virtually unchanged compared to a longer version of the Parenting Scale, which is evidence for the PS-4's validity. Overall, the PS-4 can be recommended for the assessment of parenting behavior, particularly in large-scale surveys with time constraints.
Summary
Keywords
assessment, Child Development, Mental Health, Parenting behavior, scale development
Received
17 March 2025
Accepted
04 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Schmalbach, Baier, Krieg, Braehler and Kliem. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Dirk Baier; Sören Kliem
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.