Poster #107 - The Role of Parents in Chinese Preschoolers’ Risk-Taking Behavior

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Health, Growth, Injury

Integrative Statement

In China, 41.4% of children who sustain an unintentional injury are in preschool age (Jiao et al., 2015). This rate is 27% higher than that in the U.S. (WHO & UNICEF, 2008). Risk-taking behavior is deemed to be a primary contributor to preschoolers’ unintentional injury. Researchers suggest three key factors associated with children’s risk-taking behavior, namely, parents’ risk perception, attitude toward childhood injury, and supervision (Guilfoyle, 2009). However, research findings linking all three factors are from Western countries.
In this study, our interest was to understand what role the three parental factors play in Chinese preschoolers’ risk-taking behavior. We proposed a model (Figure 1) derived from Morrongiello and Schell’s (2010) conceptual framework to test the relations among Chinese preschoolers’ risk-taking behavior and the three parental factors, i.e., risk perception, attitude, and supervision. We tested three hypotheses: (1) parents’ perception, attitude, and supervision have direct effects on Chinese preschoolers’ risk-taking behavior; (2) parents’ risk perception has an indirect effect on preschoolers’ risk-taking behavior, mediated by supervision; (3) parents’ attitude has an indirect effect on preschoolers’ risk-taking behavior, mediated by supervision.
Participants were 488 parents of preschoolers (Mchild = 55.06 months, SD = 15.15, girls = 45.5%, Mparent = 32.91, SD = 15.15, mothers = 60.7%, rural = 51.7%). We used
• Injury Behavior Checklist (Speltz et al., 1990) to assess preschoolers’ risk-taking behavior.
• Situational Supervision Questionnaire (Damashek et al., 2014) to assess parents’ risk perception, including perception of child supervision needs and perception of injury likelihood.
• Injury Attitude Questionnaire (Lewis et al., 2004) to assess parents’ attitude towards developmental benefits of childhood unintentional injury.
• Parent Supervision Attributes Profile Questionnaire (Morrongiello & House, 2004) to examine parental supervision.
The parents responded to the questionnaires at home and returned the completed questionnaires the next day.
LISREL 9.1 was used to test the model, including the measurement model and the structural model. Fit indices of the measurement model revealed a good fit, X2(df = 59) = 85.094, p = .015, X2/df < 4; RMSEA = .030, (90% CI .014, .043); CFI = .988, SRMR = .035. All pattern coefficients were significant. The structural model showed a good fit to the data as well, X2(df = 60) = 85.101, p = .018, X2/df < 4; RMSEA = .029, (90% CI .012, .042); CFI = .988, SRMR = .035. All path coefficients were significant except the one from attitude to supervision (Figure 1). The results showed that there was a negative association between parents’ risk perception and their child’s risk-taking behavior. This association was mediated by parental supervision. Conversely, there was a positive association between parents’ attitude toward childhood injury and their child’s risk-taking behavior, in which the mediating role of parental supervision was not significant. The results will be discussed in relation to the extant Western literature, and to Chinese parents’ concepts of early childhood development.

Authors

• Jun Hao, The University of Memphis
  Presenting Author

• Yeh Hsueh, University of Memphis
  Non-Presenting Author