The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Korean Parenting Inventory and identify specific Korean parenting behaviors in order to explain differences in adolescent developmental outcomes from a multiple-informant approach.
The subject...
The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Korean Parenting Inventory and identify specific Korean parenting behaviors in order to explain differences in adolescent developmental outcomes from a multiple-informant approach.
The subjects of this study were 198 fathers, 221 mothers and 891 adolescents in 8 middle schools and 7 high schools located in Seoul, Incheon and Kyunggi-do. 382 adolescents were participated in scale development, and 198 fathers, 221 mothers and 509 adolescents were participated in scale validation.
The Korean Parenting Inventory was developed by the researcher to assess paternal and maternal parenting behaviors perceived by adolescents. The Self-Esteem Scale developed by Gurney(1988) and the Social Responsibility Scale developed by Conrad and Hedin(1981) were used to assess adolescent developmental outcomes.
The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, χ^(2) tests, Pearson's product moment correlation analyses, explanatory factor analyses, F-tests, paired samples t-tests, and stepwise multiple regression analyses. In testing all hypotheses, .05 was used as a significant level in this study.
The major findings of this study were as follows:
1. The four common factors of Korean parenting perceived by adolescents were distrust, lessons, respect and attention. Generally, there was no difference in the connotation of paternal behaviors and maternal behaviors on distrust and lessons. However, there were some differences in the connotation of paternal behaviors and maternal behaviors on respect and attention. Specifically, paternal respect was based on rationale, and maternal respect was based on acceptance. Besides, paternal attention was oriented to monitoring, and maternal attention was oriented to care.
2. There were significant differences in paternal distrust, maternal distrust, lessons and respect in terms of adolescents' grade and gender. On average, middle school students reported more maternal distrust in parenting than high school students did. Moreover, boys reported more parental distrust in parenting than girls did, while girls reported more maternal lessons and respect in parenting than boys did.
3. There were significant differences in perceptions on Korean parenting between parents and their adolescents. Generally, parents reported more distrust, respect, lessons and attention in parenting than their adolescents did. In addition, there were weak though significant positive relationships in perceptions on Korean parenting between parents and their adolescents.
4. There were significant relationships between Korean parenting perceived by adolescents and adolescent developmental outcomes (i.e. self-esteem and social responsibility). Specifically, adolescents' self-esteem was negatively associated with parental distrust, yet positively associated with paternal respect, maternal attention and lessons. Furthermore, adolescents' social responsibility was positively associated with parental lessons and attention, and paternal respect, but negatively associated with paternal distrust. However, there was no significant relationship between Korean parenting perceived by parents and their adolescents' developmental outcomes (i.e. self-esteem and social responsibility).
5. Korean parenting perceived by adolescents explained adolescent developmental outcomes. That is to say, maternal attention, paternal distrust and paternal attention explained 18% of adolescents' self-esteem. In addition, maternal lessons and attention, and paternal distrust and lessons explained 25% of adolescents' social responsibility.
The results presented here provide initial support for the validity of the Korean Parenting Inventory. The implications of these results and suggestions for future research are discussed.