Abbreviation of parenting behaviors and temperament in children scales using genetic algorithms

Due to difficulties experienced during data collection from parents, data collection can become a serious concern for psychology researchers. Therefore, researchers who are working with parents should take certain additional measures to ensure the good quality of their data. Recently, psychology researchers have been interested in using psychometrically sound short scales to minimize administration time, missing data, and response burden. In this study, we employed genetic algorithms (GAs) to abbreviate Parenting Behaviors (PBS) and Temperament in Children Scales (TCS). We also created short forms using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), which is one of the traditional abbreviation approaches, and compared the abbreviated forms produced by these two approaches. Our sample of parents was N = 516; N = 383 mothers and N = 133 fathers; M age = 35.13 years; SD age = 18.53 years. The abbreviated forms retained acceptable and similar psychometric properties compared to the original scales. The validity metrics of the GA abbreviated scales show mostly similar but sometimes better results than the original scales. Although the reliability coefficients decreased with the abbreviated forms, the values remained at an acceptable level. These results demonstrate that the GA abbreviated forms for the PBS and TCS are a suitable alternative to their long forms. Furthermore, these abbreviated forms offer researchers the ability to quickly collect valid and reliable data from parents.