Poster #83 - Strengthening the Quantitative Measurement of Home-school Dissonance: Piloting a new Measure

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Home-school dissonance (HSD; i.e., differing values, beliefs, and behavioral expectations between home and school) has been associated with negative school outcomes for youth (Arunkumar, Midgley, & Urdan, 1999; Brown-Wright & Tyler, 2010; Tyler, Burris, & Coleman, 2018). Theoretically, HSD is expected to be higher for youth of color given that school culture is traditionally based on the values of the dominant culture (i.e., White, middle class); however, quantitative studies have yet to find the hypothesized higher levels of HSD in youth of color (Arunkumar et al., 1999). Given the inconsistencies between theory and empirical findings, this study used mixed-methods to examine the only measure of HSD, the “Dissonance Between Home and School” Scale (DBHS; Midgley et al., 2000) and to suggest future directions for measuring HSD.
Ten middle school students (five females; seven Black, one Latino, two White) completed cognitive interviews to assess their understanding of the five DBHS items, with prompts like, “Can you repeat the statement in your own words?” and “What types of ideas come to mind when you hear this question?” Transcripts were reviewed to identify trends and problems that occurred as participants explained how they derived their answers to the five-item DBHS scale. The students, five of their parents, and five teachers also participated in semi-structured interviews about their perceptions of HSD.
Cognitive interview results suggested students understood the prompts on the DBHS scale but had difficulty interpreting the affective component of them. Using these results, items were revised to remove the affective stem (e.g., DBHS item, “I am not comfortable talking to many of my classmates because my family is very different from theirs” was simplified into “My family is different from the families of my classmates”). Additional items (Table 1) were added based on a review of the literature and themes identified in the interviews.
The 10-item, pilot HSD scale was administered to 238 students in three Central Virginia middle schools (53% female; 29% Free/Reduced Lunch; 6% Asian, 11% Black, 9% Latinx, 54% White, 3% American Indian, 12% Multiracial, and 6% Other). The individual items were examined descriptively, and mean differences across groups were calculated using ANOVAs and t-tests. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to determine if the items measured the latent construct of HSD.
There were few significant differences on individual items across racial groups; however, students receiving free/reduced-price lunch (FRL) had significantly higher mean scores on four items (Table 1). Notably, there was an overrepresentation of students of color in the FRL group. The EFA resulted in a single-factor, five-item scale (Figure 1); this factor structure was invariant for students across broad racial categories (e.g., White/non-White) and FRL status.
Findings suggest a need to continue refining quantitative measures of HSD to more accurately capture student perceptions of HSD, and determine if they are bothered by the differences. While wording survey questions appropriately is important, we must also continue to assess HSD across groups of difference to determine how schools can be welcoming spaces for all students.

Authors

• Lora Henderson, University of Virginia
  Presenting Author

• Joanna Williams, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author