Running head: TEST CRITIQUE 1
Test Critique:
Family Environment Scale
Kyra Pridgen
Liberty University
FAMILY ENVIRONMENT SCALE 2
GENERAL INFORMATION and TEST DESCRIPTION
The assessment being presented in this paper is the Family Environment Scale (FES),
which was developed by Bernice Moos and Rudolf Moos in 1986. This particular assessment
varies in cost, depending on the type of report used, or the materials needed. For example,
according to the publisher’s website Mind Garden (n.d.), the Family Environment Scale has three
options of forms to choose from that will permit measurements of the family environment.
These forms include Ideal (Form I), Real (Form R), and Expected (Form E). If an individual
would like to do a self-report, they would purchase a Real Form (Form R) for $15.00 that will
interpret and report their FES survey scores after completion. If there is a group of participants
interested in completing the assessment, they would individually complete Form R, and the
report will then calculate the average Real Form scores of the group participants. The cost of
this report is $100.00.
Continuing on with the costs associated with the Family Environment Scale, read-only
copies of the manual are available at $50.00, which will provide information on reliability,
validity, and scoring of the Family Environment Scale. Additionally, manuals that provide the
same information, but sent to you in a hard copy format is available at $60.00 per copy. If one is
interested in administering the survey manually by pencil and paper, the license to reproduce fee
is $2.50, with a minimum purchase of 50 surveys. The same fee and minimum purchase applies
to those who would like to attain a remote online survey license for administering the survey
online, but outside of the Mind Garden survey system. Using the Transform Survey Hosting
system through Mind Garden, there is an option to purchase each form for administering at $2.50
with a minimum purchase of 20 forms for each.
FAMILY ENVIRONMENT SCALE 3
Discussed in the article by Sanford, Bingham, and Zucker (1999), the purpose of the
Family Environment Scale was to gauge perceived family environment by using 90 true or false
items intended to measure social-environmental characteristics of families. Also included in the
Scale are 10 sub-scales that are broken down into three systemic concepts of Relationship,
Personal Growth, and Systems Maintenance. Primary use for the FES is to assist clinicians in
learning about family systems while measuring Relationship dimensions of Cohesion,
Expressiveness, and Conflict. Personal Growth dimensions consist of Independence,
Achievement Orientation, Intellectual-Cultural Orientation, Active-Recreational Orientation, and
Moral-Religious Emphasis assessments. Lastly, the System Maintenance dimensions involves
Organization and Control Measures. Once scoring is complete for each of the 10 subscales, the
families are clustered into one of the three family concepts based off of assessed personality
characteristics.
As stated prior, the Family Environment Scale is designed for measuring the social-
environmental characteristics of families. Noted by Mind Garden (n.d.), this empirical test is
popular in clinical settings, used to facilitate psychotherapy, and family counseling. The Family
Environment Scale is also found to be useful in teaching about family systems and program
evaluation. Roughly taking 15-20 minutes to complete, the structure of the FES consists of 90
true or false items with 10 scores resulting from the subscales to make the ending family
environment profile. A breakdown of the forms used in the test are as followed: Form R is used
to measure an individual’s family environment perception, Form I is used to modify items that
assessed that individual’s perception of their family environment, and Form E provides the
individual’s with an opportunity to provide an opinion on how they think their family will
respond to adversity.
FAMILY ENVIRONMENT SCALE 4
TECHNICAL EVALUATION and PRACTICAL EVALUATION
Although the Family Environment Scale is considered to be widely used among
clinicians and program evaluators with an internal consistency for the Real Form ranging
between .61 and .78 (Lucey & Lam, 2012), Boyd, Gullone, Needleman, and Burt (1997) posit
that the FES has some flaws when it comes to the reliability and internal consistency. They
highlighted data that was used to challenge prior reports of reliability predictions for the scale
and found that five of the subscales were not just lower than ones reported, but also found that
the subscales were well below the level of acceptance for research purposes. This prompted the
authors to put out disclaimers in reference to the FES, indicating that researchers be mindful
when using the scale until further investigations on the reliability is known. With data deeming
the scale inadequate for its reliability, Boyd, Gullone, Needleman, and Burt (1997) continued on
to highlight the battle between the naysayers and the developers of the FES.
Evidence of FES content validity is symbolized by the genuineness represented in the
individualized statements of the family participants. For instance, in order to gauge the level of
support and commitment of each family member in respect to one another, the publishers note
that all participants of the family are encouraged to openly express their array of feelings
directly. According to Sanford, Bingham, and Zucker (1999), they state that the convergent
validity of the FES is weak. Their testimony is backed up by statements implying that the FES
has poor validity due to reasons such as the developers reporting few validation studies, reported
few observational based data studies, and only provided minimal convergent validity proof for a
few of the scales. Subsequently, the Mind Garden publishers mention that the subscales can be
removed in its entirety without either the validity or reliability being affected in the Family
Environment Scale.
FAMILY ENVIRONMENT SCALE 5
SUMMARY EVALUATION AND CRITIQUE
In summation, a strength and weakness that was noticed in the FES was associated with
its reliability. Consisting of 90 items has a chance for a high rate of reliability. However, scoring
in the assessment when it comes to the participants being forthright and having the same
understanding of comprehension could yield inaccurate results. Even though the target
population is specified to those who are 11 years and older, reading on a 6th grade level and up
(Mind Garden, n.d.), there is no certainty that the participants will provide accurate statements
that are based on the same level of measurement in responses. Chipuer and Villegas (2001) bring
attention to this in their article. They hypothesize that if there is an underlying difference in
perceptions of spouses, it would be unclear as to what the difference actually mean. Thus, these
inconsistent ground level measurements have the ability to make a huge difference in the true
reflection of the perception scores.
References
FAMILY ENVIRONMENT SCALE 6
Boyd, C. P., Gullone, E., Needleman, G. L., & Burt, T. (1997). The family environment
scale: Reliability and normative data for an adolescent sample. Family
Process, 36(4), 369-373. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1997.00369.x
Chipuer, H. M., & Villegas, T. (2001). Comparing the Second‐Order factor structure of
the family environment scale across husbands' and wives' perceptions of their
family environment. Family Process, 40(2), 187-198. doi:10.1111/j.1545-
5300.2001.4020100187.x
Lucey, C. F., & Lam, S. K. Y. (2012). Predicting suicide risks among outpatient
adolescents using the family environment scale: Implications for practice and
research. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 34(2), 107-
117. doi:10.1007/s10447-011-9140-6
Moos, B. S., & Moos, R. H. (n.d.). Family Environment Scale. Retrieved December 7,
2018, from https://www.mindgarden.com/96-family-environment-scale
Sanford, K., Bingham, C. R., & Zucker, R. A. (1999). Validity issues with the family
environment scale: Psychometric resolution and research application with
alcoholic families. Psychological Assessment, 11(3), 315-325. doi:10.1037/1040-
3590.11.3.315
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