Morsbach Sarah K, Prinz Ronald J
University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, USA.
Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev. 2006 Mar;9(1):1-21. doi: 10.1007/s10567-006-0001-5.
Although researchers using parental self-report data have questioned its validity (Holden, 2001) and called for more work in this area (Krevans & Gibbs, 1996; Locke & Prinz, 2002), methodological concerns regarding self-report about parenting practices have not been addressed adequately. The susceptibility of parental report to systematic distortions suggests a need for research on ways to improve self-report. This paper attempts to synthesize research findings from other fields (e.g., survey methodology) about ways to improve the validity of self-report, and to discuss the implications for self-report of parenting behaviors. Methods for improving self-report are presented for each of the 5 major tasks in responding to a question: (1) understanding the question, (2) recalling relevant behavior, (3) inference and estimation, (4) mapping the answer onto the response format, and (5) "editing" the answer for reasons of social desirability. Self-administered interviewing, audio-computer-assisted interviewing, pretesting, conversational interviewing, and the decompositional item may be among the best candidates for use in parental self-report. Recommendations are offered with respect to strategies that might prove useful in improving parental assessment of parenting, and to research efforts to evaluate the utility and potential costs of these strategies.
尽管使用父母自我报告数据的研究人员对其有效性提出了质疑（霍尔登，2001年），并呼吁在该领域开展更多工作（克雷万斯和吉布斯，1996年；洛克和普林兹，2002年），但关于育儿实践自我报告的方法学问题尚未得到充分解决。父母报告易受系统性扭曲影响，这表明需要研究提高自我报告的方法。本文试图综合其他领域（如调查方法学）关于提高自我报告有效性方法的研究结果，并讨论其对育儿行为自我报告的启示。针对回答问题的5个主要任务中的每一个，都提出了提高自我报告的方法：（1）理解问题，（2）回忆相关行为，（3）推理和估计，（4）将答案映射到回答格式，以及（5）出于社会期望的原因“编辑”答案。自我管理访谈、音频计算机辅助访谈、预测试、对话式访谈和分解项目可能是用于父母自我报告的最佳选择。文中针对可能有助于改进父母对育儿评估的策略，以及评估这些策略的效用和潜在成本的研究工作提出了建议。
