Parenting Skills Ladder (PSL)

The Parenting Skills Ladder (PSL) was developed at Oregon State University as a tool to support the evaluation of parenting education series. The PSL uses a retrospective pre-test approach and is designed to be used at the end of a parenting education series. During the final class of a series (or following class completion), parents are asked to rate themselves on their current parenting knowledge and practices as well as their child’s behavior. Parents are then asked to think back and rate themselves on these same items thinking back to their knowledge and practices before the parenting series.

The PSL may be used for educational, research, and non-profit purposes for distribution in programs working with families of children ages 0-8. The PSL is also is used by OPEC grantees to gather evaluation data from parents who participate in evidence-based parenting education programs for grant reporting purposes.

At this time, the PSL is available in English, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, and Arabic.

Requesting Access to the PSL

For the general public: Complete the PSL Request Form and we will follow up with your requested materials.

For organizations who need the Parenting Skills Ladder (PSL) to meet grant requirements: please reach out to your main grant contact for access to reporting forms and information. This includes OPEC Hubs, organizations or individuals who have received funding to facilitate parenting education programming from an OPEC Hub, and Multnomah County Programming Grantees. 

For questions, contact the Oregon State University Parenting Education Team at [email protected].

Citing PSL

When using the PSL for publication purposes, please cite:

Pratt, C., Katzev, A., Peters, C., Bowman, S., Rennekamp, D., & Sektnan, M. (2014). Parenting Skills Ladder, Revised, Second Edition. Oregon State University: Extension Family and Community Health.

Additional resources

Geldhof, G. J., Warner, D. A., Finders, J. K., Thogmartin, A. A., Clark, A., & Longway, K. A. (2018). Revisiting the utility of retrospective pre-post designs: the need for mixed-method pilot data. Evaluation and program planning, 70, 83-89.

Finders, J. K., Díaz, G., Geldhof, G. J., Sektnan, M., & Rennekamp, D. (2016). The impact of parenting education on parent and child behaviors: Moderators by income and ethnicity. Children and youth services review, 71, 199-209.