We used three questions to assess parental monitoring. Students indicated how important it was for their parents (or parental figures) to know (1) who their friends are, (2) where they are, and (3) whom they are dating. We adapted these questions from the Parental Supervision scale, which has good internal consistency and validity (Bjerregaard & Smith, 1993). Students indicated their responses on a 4-point scale (1 = Very Important to 4 = Not at all important). This questionnaire did not distinguish between maternal and paternal monitoring. We calculated a total score by reverse coding and then taking the mean of score on all three items. Higher scores thus corresponded to greater parental monitoring. The internal consistency (α) of this scale was .74.
