The Dakota Father Friendly Assessment: Measuring Father Friendliness in Head Start and Similar Settings.

Head Start programs offer a setting to examine support that facilitates father involvement. The Dakota Father Friendly Assessment (DFFA) is designed to evaluate an organization's level of father-friendliness. To establish its psychometric properties, a sample of North and South Dakota early childhood staff (N = 609) completed the DFFA. A number of measures were included as indicators of validity. Factor analysis of the DFFA confirmed the presence of four expected factors and revealed a fifth factor (loadings ranged from .40 to .80). Coefficient alphas for DFFA subscales ranged from .71 to .87. Moderate relationships existed between DFFA subscales and other measures, demonstrating concurrent and discriminant validity. Research is needed to determine the efficacy of the DFFA in other organizational settings and to identify change over time. (Author abstract)