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A Measurement Model of Media Parenting: Differences Across Parent and Child Reporters and Youth Age and Sex
Thu, April 8, 3:15 to 4:15pm EDT (3:15 to 4:15pm EDT), VirtualAbstract
Background: The standard U.S. family household owns approximately 10 connected devices, enabling children to spend on average 7-8 hours online each day (Blumberg and Luke, 2016; Collier et al., 2016). For the digitally native generation raised in a media-saturated environment, online risk behaviors¬ such as cyberbullying and sexting have become increasingly problematic. Since media is primarily consumed at home, parents play an important role in mitigating its negative effects on youth; parents can teach children about online risks and regulate the amount of time they spend and content they see online (O’Connor et al., 2013). Research on parental mediation as it relates to more traditional media, such as television, has identified five primary domains that parents commonly employ: active mediation, restrictive mediation, co-use of technology, parental monitoring, and technology control (e.g., Valkenburg et al., 1999). While measures of media parenting are emerging in the literature, additional work is needed to ensure reliability and validity of measurement. The present study evaluated the psychometric properties of a modified media parenting measure specific to more personalized media (Livingstone and Helsper, 2008) across both parent and child reporters. To identify meaningful group differences, latent mean comparisons were evaluated across youth age and sex.
Methods: This study employs secondary data analysis of an online survey of parent and child technology use and online experiences, including parent report of media management behaviors, youth report of the same, and a variety of youth report measures regarding online and build-world risk behaviors. Study authors collaborated with Qualtrics panel specialists to identify and recruit parents of 10-14-year-olds. We utilized confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) within a structural equation modeling framework to compare parent and child reports of media management behaviors. Invariance testing was employed to determine measurement equivalence across children aged 10-11 and 12-14, as well as males and females.
Results: CFA results provided good fit to the data for the proposed four-factor media parenting model based on both parent [𝝌2(201, n=307) =386.921; RMSEA=.055 (.047-.063); CFI=.957; TLI/NNFI=.951; SRMR=.049] and child [𝝌2(203, n=306) =378.033; RMSEA=.053 (.045-.061; CFI=.942; TLI/NNFI=.934; SRMR=.060] reporters. The final latent parenting factors included: active parenting, monitoring, restrictive parenting, and tech control. Inclusion of a higher order media parenting construct did not yield better model fit. Nonsignificant invariance testing indicated that the same underlying construct was measured across gender and age. Latent mean comparisons revealed that parents of females reported higher levels of monitoring than parents of males, with a standardized latent mean difference (Mdiff) of .297 (p<.05), whereas female youth reported higher levels of parental restriction than males (Mdiff=.273, p<.05). Similarly, older children and their parents reported lower parental restriction than younger children (Mdiff=.429, p<.01) and their parents (Mdiff=.382, p<.01).
Conclusion: Evidence for construct validity was obtained from CFA results for both parent and child measurement models of the media parenting construct, but differences across the reporters emerged. Overall latent mean differences identified between media parenting domains may be important for youth outcomes and provides support for their inclusion as distinct factors in predictive models.