Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2012 The Relations of Parental Acculturation, Parental Mediation, and Children's Educational Television Program Viewing in Immigrant Families Yuting Zhao Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION THE RELATIONS OF PARENTAL ACCULTURATION, PARENTAL MEDIATION, AND CHILDREN’S EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION PROGRAM VIEWING IN IMMIGRANT FAMILIES By YUTING ZHAO A Thesis submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2012 Yuting Zhao defended this thesis on December 7th, 2011. The members of the supervisory committee were: Beth M. Phillips Professor Directing Thesis Alysia D. Roehrig Committee Member Yanyun Yang Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................. v LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... vi ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................ 5 Family Characteristics and Home Literacy Environment ............................................... 5 Children in Immigrant Families ...................................................................................... 7 Educational Television Programs ................................................................................... 8 How to support literacy. .............................................................................................. 9 Empirical studies. ...................................................................................................... 10 The Viewing Patterns of Children ................................................................................ 14 Theoretical Model: Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model ............................................. 15 Parental Mediation of Children’s Television Viewing ................................................. 17 Parental Acculturation .................................................................................................. 18 Immigration and Acculturation Patterns for Included Study Populations .................... 21 Asian Americans. ...................................................................................................... 21 Hispanic Americans. ................................................................................................. 22 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 23 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS .......................................................................... 27 Participants .................................................................................................................... 27 Recruiting methods. .................................................................................................. 28 Response rate. ........................................................................................................... 29 Sample....................................................................................................................... 29 Measures ....................................................................................................................... 30 Procedures ..................................................................................................................... 33 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS .................................................................................................. 35 Preliminary Analyses .................................................................................................... 35 Family annual income. .............................................................................................. 35 Research Question 1 ..................................................................................................... 39 Research Question 2 ..................................................................................................... 42 Research Question 3 ..................................................................................................... 44 Research Question 4 ..................................................................................................... 46 Full structural regression model. ............................................................................... 49 iii Path analysis.............................................................................................................. 53 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION ............................................................................................ 60 Educational Television Programs Viewing by Children .............................................. 61 Group Differences in Educational Television Programs Viewing by Children ........... 61 Group Differences in Parental Acculturation ............................................................... 63 Group Differences between Asian and Hispanic Families in Parental Mediation ........ 64 Relations among Aspects of Parental Acculturation, Aspects of Parental Mediation, and Educational Television Viewing by Children ........................................................ 66 Revisiting Bronfenbrenner’s Model ............................................................................. 71 Educational Implications .............................................................................................. 72 Limitations .................................................................................................................... 73 Future Research ............................................................................................................ 74 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 74 APPENDIX A: FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY IRB APPROVAL ........................... 75 APPENDIX B: DIRECTOR AND PARENT COVER LETTERS .................................. 78 APPENDIX C: PARENT SURVEY ................................................................................ 80 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 84 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH……………………………………………………...……..98 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Empirical Studies of Educational Television on Literacy .................................. 12 Table 2: Child and Family Demographic Characteristics Overall and by Subgroups ...... 30 Table 3: Summary of Survey Measures ............................................................................ 31 Table 4: The Observed Frequencies of Family Annual Income for Subgroups ............... 38 Table 5: Chi-square Tests for Independence .................................................................... 38 Table 6: Comparison of Television Viewing between Asian and Hispanic Children ...... 42 Table 7: Frequency of High Utilization for Each Type of Parental Mediation ................ 42 Table 8: Scores of Parental Mediation .............................................................................. 43 Table 9: Parental Acculturation Patterns by Subgroups ................................................... 44 Table 10: Scores of Parental Acculturation ...................................................................... 44 Table 11: Welch Test for Parental Acculturation ............................................................. 45 Table 12: Correlations among Observed Variables .......................................................... 48 Table 13: A Step-Wise Model Comparison Procedure ..................................................... 58 Table 14: Standardized Direct, Indirect and Total Effects of Final Model (Model 8) ..... 59 Table 15: Sesame Street International Coproductions ...................................................... 70 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Bronfenbrenner-derived Ecological Model in Educational Television Viewing for Children in Immigrant Families. ................................................................. 16 Figure 2: The Hypothesized Model .................................................................................. 26 Figure 3: Percentage of Families in Each Income Category. ............................................ 37 Figure 4: Parents’ Report of PBS Shows Children Often Watch ..................................... 40 Figure 5: The Measurement Model of the Hypothesized Model (Model A) .................... 51 Figure 6: A Modified Measurement Model (Model B). ................................................... 53 Figure 7: Path Models ....................................................................................................... 55 Figure 8: Final Path Model with Standardized Parameters (Model 8) ............................