Description

The Closeness to Grandparents scale (2000), assessed adolescents’ perceived emotional closeness and relationship quality with the grandparent they felt closest to. The five-item scale asked participants about how much they could depend on their grandparent, how loved and cared for they felt, satisfaction with the relationship, perceived closeness compared to other grandchildren, and how often the grandparent provided advice or help with problems. Items were rated using 4-point response scales with anchors that varied by item, and responses were averaged to create an overall closeness score.

AI/AN Communities where the measure has been used

Oklahoma Tribal Nation. Survey administered on behalf of the I Am Native Drug-free Nations (IAMNDN) program.

Demographics of AI/AN participants where the scale has been used

Native American Adults (age range 18-79 years old, men and women mostly from specific Oklahoma tribe but also from other tribes and multi-tribal backgrounds)

Notes on adaptations or modifications

  • The original measure used several 4-point response scales with different anchors depending on the item (e.g., “not at all” to “a lot” or “never” to “often”). The adapted CGS instead used a standardized 5-point Likert agreement scale ranging from “Completely disagree” to “Completely agree.”
  • The adapted CGS (Ponce-Garcia et al., 2019) has six items, and simplified and combined items from the original grandparent relationship measures into six general statements about feeling loved, cared for, appreciated, helped, close to, and able to depend on a grandparent during childhood. Some original items about relationship satisfaction and comparisons with other grandchildren were removed.

Modality and administration

Paper and pencil survey. Participants were given a paper-based survey to be completed and returned immediately, or at their own convenience

Scoring

Items were rated on 4-point response scales, and responses were averaged to create an overall score reflecting perceived closeness to the participant’s closest grandparent, with higher scores indicating greater relationship closeness.

Psychometric evidence

Adapted CGS (Ponce-Garcia et al., 2019) exhibited good internal reliability with Cronbach’s alpha of .82.

Citation(s)

Elder, G. H., & Conger, R. D. (2000). Children of the land: Adversity and success in rural America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Example article:

Attar-Schwartz, S., Tan, J., & Buchanan, A. (2009). Adolescents’ perspectives on relationships with grandparents: The contribution of adolescent, grandparent, and parent–Grandparent relationship variables. Children and Youth Services Review, 31(9), 1057–1066. doi:10.3109/10253891003671690

Ponce-Garcia, E., Calix, S., Madewell, A. N., Randell, J. A., Perales, L., Bread, D., & Turner, B. (2019). Through Childhood Relationship with Grandparent, Enculturation Leads to Resilience in Native American Adults. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 17(3), 340–352. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2018.1535348

Note: The included citations are not exhaustive but represent the examples we had access to. If you are an original author or have other work that could be included here, please contact us.