AN ANALYSIS OF ASIAN AMERICAN FATHERS’ GOALS ABOUT SHARED BOOK READING WITH THEIR PRESCHOOLERS By Run Tan A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Human Development and Family Studies - Master of Science 2014 ABSTRACT AN ANALYSIS OF ASIAN AMERICAN FATHERS’ GOALS ABOUT SHARED BOOK READING WITH THEIR PRESCHOOLERS By Run Tan The current study investigated what goals and beliefs Asian American fathers have for shared book reading with their preschoolers. I also explored how the contextual factors: families’ socioeconomic status (SES) and family’s acculturation level are related to the beliefs and goals Asian American fathers have. The research is guided by ecological theory and acculturation theory. Three hypotheses were explored: (a) Asian American fathers perceive shared book reading as a preparation for their children’s academic success for they rank the goal “learn to read” as an important goal; (b) Asian American fathers’ acculturation level will influence their rating on the goal Foster Reading; (c) Asian American fathers’ SES will influence their rating on the goal Foster Reading. Findings show the goals for Asian American fathers’ having storybook reading with their preschoolers do vary and that they treat book reading as a way to prepare their children’s academic success. Secondly, it also shows a positive (but weak) association between Asian American fathers’ acculturation level and their Foster Reading goal and no association between their SES and their Foster Reading goal. Keywords: shared book reading, goal, Asian American fathers, acculturation level, SES TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. vi CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ................................................................... 1 1.1 Family Literacy ............................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Shared Book Reading ..................................................................................................... 1 1.3 Parents’ Beliefs and Goals for Book Reading................................................................. 3 1.4 The Importance of Studying Fathers............................................................................... 8 1.5 Contemporary Asian American Fathers’ Involvement .................................................. 10 1.6 Acculturation Level and Asian American Fathers’ Book Reading Goals ..................... 12 1.7 Family’s SES and Fathers’ Goal ................................................................................... 15 1.8 The Present Study ......................................................................................................... 19 CHAPTER 2: METHODS ..................................................................................................... 22 2.1 Participants.................................................................................................................... 22 2.2 Measures ....................................................................................................................... 22 2.2.1 Family’s SES .......................................................................................................... 22 2.2.2 Fathers’ book reading goals .................................................................................... 23 2.2.3 Father’s acculturation level .................................................................................... 24 2.3 Procedures..................................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS ........................................................................................................ 27 3.1 Descriptive Data on Fathers’ Goals for Shared Book Reading..................................... 27 3.2 Book Reading as an Important Way to Prepare Children’s Academic Success ............ 28 3.3 Relation between Fathers’ Acculturation and Their Foster Reading Rating................. 28 3.4 Relations between Father’s SES and Their Foster Reading Rating .............................. 30 CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION ................................................................................................. 31 4.1 Asian American Fathers’ Most Important Goal ............................................................ 31 4.2 Asian American Fathers’ Goal for Foster Reading ....................................................... 31 4.3 Association with SES .................................................................................................... 32 4.4 Association with fathers’ acculturation level ................................................................ 35 4.5 Limitation...................................................................................................................... 38 4.5.1 Limitation with Sample Size and the Participants.................................................. 38 4.5.2 Limitations with the Measures ............................................................................... 39 APPENDICES ........................................................................................................................ 41 APPENDIX A: Introduction to Research Study ................................................................. 42 APPENDIX B: Demographic Questionnaire ...................................................................... 43 iii APPENDIX C: Survey of Goals for Shared Reading (SGSR; Evans & Williamson, 2003) ............................................................................................................................................ 44 APPENDIX D: Asian American Multidimensional Acculturation Scale (AAMAS) ......... 46 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 48 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Mean and SD for parents’ ratings of goals for shared book reading………………..27 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 The Theoretical Model for The Study ………………………………..……….…..21 vi CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 1.1 Family Literacy Literacy development begins as early as when children are exposed to books, language, and writing within the context of their homes and it can predict strongly children’s academic performance later (Werner & Smith, 1992; Jordan et al., 2000). Therefore, family offers the very first natural context for a child’s literacy to take place and develop (Purcell-Gates, 1996; Strickland & Taylor, 1989). Based on its important role, in recent years, family literacy that emphasizes the various interrelated literacy practice among children and family members taking place in families throughout the day (Heath, 1983; Morrow & Paratore, 1993; Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988) has been widely discussed and researched. 1.2 Shared Book Reading Book reading is one of the most influential family literacy-related activities. It takes place in natural home contexts, involving children and their parents. It is defined as an activity in which an adult read to a child or a group of children and it is recommended by educators for its key role in contributing to a young child's literacy development (Mirian & William, 1993). According to Vygotsky’s bio-ecological theory (Vygotsky, 1962, 1978), shared book reading offers children both social and contextual support for them to develop their language. It is characterized with dynamic and reciprocal adult-child interactions, which provides a powerful interactive context that can attract and engage more children’s interests and attention. Through those interactive communications, children’s literacy development as well as their development in other domains can be achieved (Justice & Joan, 2002). 1 The specific dynamic works as follows: according to this theory, a child’s potential for cognitive development depends on her or his “zone of proximal development”. More specifically, children can develop a wider range of skills with an adult’s instructions and guidance than when they work alone. During shared book reading, a more capable adult (a parent) can supervise and offer guidance in the process where a child tries to understand the whole story. Through interactions and questions, the adult also offers the child clues by relating the story to daily experiences so that the child can achieve better comprehension of the text (Rogoff, 1990). Moreover, while having shared book reading with the child, the adult also actively engages the child into exploring the structure and meaning of the story, which will contribute to the child’s acquisition of better language and other related skills (Heath, 1982; Snow, 1991). While examining all the empirical studies that support shared book reading, I find that it is confirmed that shared book reading is related to children’s outcome measures such as vocabulary development, knowledge of language in books, emergent literacy, exposure to print, and exposure to phonological awareness during both the preschool and elementary stages (De Temple & Snow, 2003; Ninio, 1983; Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994; Senechal et al., 1996; Snow & Ninio, 1986). In another review study, the authors look into the relationship between parent-child book reading practices and their children’s outcomes (Commission on Reading, National Academy of Education, 1985). From this study, we see an increase of both children’s interest in reading and their awareness of letter-sound knowledge. Moreover, they also show a better understanding of the world. 2 Moreover, another case study (Cochran-Smith, 1984) focuses on children from a private nursery school. From this study, we know that when they are engaged in book reading practices, they will know more about the story structures, schemes and literacy conventions. Those are prerequisites for a child to better understand the texts. In addition, a number of intervention studies also provide strong evidence to support the idea that storybook reading promotes language development (for a review, see Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994; and for a meta-analysis, see Bus, van IJzendoorn, & Pellegrini 1995). Based on the theoretical and empirical supports shown above, we can see that shared book reading provides parents and children an almost ideal context for them to interact and also promotes children’s language development. 1.3 Parents’ Beliefs and Goals for Book Reading Parents play an important role in the shared book reading process because they are the ones that accompany the children and initiate different interactions with them in the book reading process. There are a number of studies focusing on the nature of the benefits generated by parents’ shared book reading practices (Mansell, Evans, & Hamilton-Hulak, 2005; Sénéchal, LeFevre, Hudson, & Lawson, 1996). A number of them indicate that while having shared book reading with their children, parents’ different interaction styles are mainly associated with children’s different levels of literacy development (e.g., Bergin, 2001; DeTemple, 2001; Evans, Barraball, & Eberle, 1998; Mansell et al., 2005; Reese & Cox, 1990; Stoltz & Fischel, 2003). Parents tend to show differences in their interactions with children during the book reading process and those differences will impact children’s literacy development. Therefore, it is important to know what specific factors that cast an influence 3 on those different interactions, or to be more specific, the factors that may affect parents’ particular behaviors at different time points during the book reading process (Diana et al., 2008). Past research studies have indicated a number of factors that can influence parents’ behaviors in the storybook reading process: parents’ educational level, parental stress, family income, children’s reading abilities, etc. (Weigel, Martin, & Bennett, 2005; Mansell et al., 2005; Tracey & Young, 2002; Evans 1998; Pellegrini, Brody, & Sigel, 1985; Stoltz & Fischel, 2003). One of the research targeting at the factors influencing parental behaviors during literacy related activities focuses on the strategies parents utilize to support their children at certain time points during the reading process. It always takes place when the meaning or the pronunciation of the text is beyond the children’s ability (Stoltz & Fischel, 2003). According to the study, it is suggested that children’s reading skills, as well as parents' reading skills, influence parents’ specific behaviors and the strategies they apply. Another study focuses on how parental contextual factors (mothers’ family income, maternal belief and attitudes, etc.) and children’s specific characteristics (age, gender, etc.) influence mothers’ reading aloud behaviors to their children (Karrass, VanDeventer, & Braungart-Rieker 2003). The study finds out that mothers who suffer less stress from parenting and daily life are more likely to read to their infants aloud. There are also a number of studies demonstrating that both parental beliefs and goals can affect their specific behaviors and literary activities they engage in during shared book reading process (Audet, 2013; Audet, Evans, Williamson, & Reynolds, 2008). Specifically, 4 in the case of storybook reading, parental beliefs and goals both influence their conceptions of how important book reading is and what results book reading should bring to their child. Those all serve as factors that influence parents’ specific behaviors during book reading process (Diana, 2006；DeBaryshe & Binder, 1994, Sonnenschein et at., 1996；Sonnenschein et al., 1997). Specifically, in one of the studies discussing how parental beliefs influence their behaviors during shared book reading process, it has been discovered that parental beliefs about reading to their preschoolers strongly predict their behaviors of reading aloud to their children during the book reading process. Moreover, they also found that mothers who construct their views based on what current models of emergent literacy advocate tend to initiate more interactive reading experiences. Those interactions involve more various communications with children (DeBaryshe & Binder, 1994). Similarly, in one of parents’ goals research, it shows that to study parents’ goals could serve as one way to explain why parents demonstrate certain behaviors (Austin &Vancouver, 1996). Moreover, recently, a growing number of studies focusing on parents’ goals show that their goals cast an impact on their specific behaviors during literacy-related activities with their children. One of those studies examines how parents’ goals for book reading influence their behaviors, especially their print-referencing behaviors (e.g. naming a letter, emphasizing a phoneme). The authors select one group parents (119 parents) and another subsample (42 parents) based on their opposite goals demonstrated in the Survey of Goals for Shared Reading (SGSR; Evans & Williamson, 2003). According to the results, there are five 5 different goals shown (Stimulate Development, Foster Reading, Bonding, Soothe the Child, and Enjoy Books). Moreover, parents who treat the goal Fostering Reading as the most important goal tend to show more echo-reading behaviors, as well as more print-referencing behaviors compared to other parents. Another one of those research studies examines the goals for parents’ reading ABC books with their children and how their goals affect them in identifying the ABC book pages’ features. According to this study, parents rate book reading for Foster Reading as the most important goal among the four distinct goals they have while they are reading ABC books with their children (Learning to Read; Enjoyment; Bonding; Soothing). Moreover, parents tend to rate ABC books that have simple pictures much higher scores than the ones with complicated pictures because they think easy ones are appropriate for their children to decode the contexts. The authors in this study fail to show that parents’ book reading goals directly impact their behaviors during the ABC book reading process. Nevertheless, they suggest that based on the goals they have, parents may engage themselves in more coaching reading practices with their children. The reason behind this is that those parents assign themselves obligations to enable children to learn (Evans et al., 2004). As a matter of fact, in several studies targeting at the influence of beliefs and goals on parents’ behaviors (Sonnenschein, et. at., 1996；Sonnenschein et al., 1997), the authors use goals and beliefs as interchangeable concepts and switch them naturally in the whole study process. From the 1996 study, it is discovered that parents’ clear beliefs and goals for book reading will directly decide what and when to expect from their children for their social and cognitive skills development. Moreover, their beliefs and goals also influence what literacy 6 experience and activities they will design or choose for their children. In a study carried out in 1997, the authors further discovered that parents tended to show two trends of beliefs in general. Specifically, the first one is an entertainment-oriented goal and the second one is a skill-oriented goal. According to the different goals they hold, parents demonstrate different behaviors and emphases while they choose activities (Sonnenschein et al., 1997). Specifically, parents who hold the belief that literacy activities should be more skills oriented tend to apply more direct instructions during the process. On the other hand, parents who emphasize an entertainment goal initiate more entertainment print-related activities with their children (in this study, the shared book reading is recognized as one of the entertaining activities). Meanwhile, they also consider children’s role in those literacy experiences and adjust their own behaviors in different methods based on children’s characteristics. As a result, children whose parents apply a more entertainment orientation approach are predicted to have set better literacy-related knowledge than children from a more skill-oriented family. Based on the existing research I have illustrated above concerning parents’ goals and beliefs about book reading, we can see parents’ goals and beliefs influence their behaviors in a similar way. Moreover, existing studies also treat them as interchangeable concepts and use them alternatively. Therefore, in the present study, I will use parents’ goals as the term to both show parents’ goals and beliefs. While examining all the research focusing on parents’ goals and how they influence parents’ specific behaviors during the book reading and other literacy-related activities, we find almost all of the studies predominantly focusing on European American mothers. Specifically, how their beliefs and goals about book reading influence their behaviors and 7 how those different behaviors impact children’s different literacy development. There are very few studies targeting specifically at fathers, let alone fathers from other cultures. 1.4 The Importance of Studying Fathers The important role fathers play and how their involvement specifically influence their child’s development through their life can be better understood by looking at Brofenbrenner’s ecological theory. Within this theory, children develop through their dynamic interactions with the environment reciprocally, which is known as the proximal process interactions. Microsystem serves as the closest environment for children (one of the five subsystems, other fours are mesosystem; exosystem; macrosystem and chronosystem). It offers fathers the closest environment where they become one of the closest figures in a child’s life since the child is born. Within that environment, they also initiate interactions with their children and affect their development directly. To be more specific, according to the empirical research studies, fathers' emotional investment and resource provision for their children are all related to their children’s physical well-being, cognitive development as well as social emotional competence (e.g., Yogman, Kindlon, & Earls, 1995). Moreover, the importance of fathers’ involvement to their children’s development is further confirmed in a meta-analysis study that examines 68 studies concerning fathers’ involvement. Among them, 56 studies show an association between paternal involvement and child’s outcomes in two-parent families (Amato & Rivera, 1999). In addition, fathers also have been found to be important in the development of children's emotional regulation and control (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1997). Therefore, we can see that fathers do play a crucial part in a child’s early life 8 and that their involvement is positively related to their children’s development. The mesosystem connects the microsystem and targets at the relationship of the microsystem partners (e.g., the relationship between a child’s father and teacher or father and mother). It provides fathers a context where they can also affect their children, but in an indirect way. From the empirical research perspective, one study indicates that, during children’s middle childhood, paternal involvement in children's schooling, in both single-father and two-parent family is associated with children’s greater educational achievement and enjoyment of school (Nord, Brimhall, & West, 1997). Data that was collected by the National Center for Educational Statistics (1997) suggests “children do better in school when their fathers are involved in schools, regardless of whether fathers live with them or not” (p71). When fathers are there and try to involve in their children’s life, they try to participate in the children’s school life and construct a good relationship with the teachers, which will be perceived as positive signs by the children. Thus, children tend to first of all have more A’s and are less likely to repeat a grade. At the same time, they are more likely to participate in extra-curriculum activities and have more fun in school (McBride, Schoppe-Sullivan, & Ho, 2005). According to another study focusing on fathers’ involvement and how marital conflicts may impact it, the authors discover that the marital conflict cast a strong influence on father’s involvement in their children’s life. Specifically, when the marital conflict is low, fathers tend to show more involvement in their children’s development (Pleck & Hofferth, 2008). Therefore, from an indirect way, we still see how much father’s involvement can influence their children’s development. Moreover, fathers are currently expected by the whole society to shoulder more 9 responsibilities and take a more active role in childrearing because of the socio-cultural changes. Those changes include increasing divorce rate, increasing working mothers, as well as growing number of non-parental care for children (Saracho & Spokek, 2008). We can see fathers’ important role and how their involvement influences their children’s academic success, as well as their social-emotional development before and during school years from the above research and empirical studies. However, there are relatively very few studies specifically targeting at fathers’ role and their impact on children’s early literacy development (e.g., book reading), let alone on how fathers’ goals about storybook reading will impact their children’s literacy development. 1.5 Contemporary Asian American Fathers’ Involvement Since the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, there is a drastic increase of immigrants from Asia. On average, the United States annually admits more than 220,000 Asian immigrants (Min, 2006); In 2011, the total population of Asian Americans—foreign born and U.S born, adults and children—reached to a record of 18.2 million, or 5.8% of the total U.S. population (Pew research center, 2011). Apart from its drastically increasing population and its growing importance that have begun to draw researchers’ observations, Asian American parents also receive increasing observations for their children’s high academic performance. Asian American children, on average, continue to outperform European American children in academic performance as early as preschool (Huntsinger, Jose, Liaw, & Ching, 1997). They are commonly depicted as academic superstars or model minorities (Lee, 1994). Based on its increasing importance, researchers started to target at this population. They 10 find out that modern Asian American fathers start to demonstrate some changes from their traditional cultures in their childrearing aspect. At the same time, they also seem to maintain some values cherished by their original culture, especially the emphasis of children’s academic success, which may offer some evidence to the formation of “Model of Minority” Specifically, from a study targeting at East Asian immigrant families, the authors find out that fathers share the same number of child care responsibilities as their wives do (Chuang & Su, 2009). Meanwhile, from other studies, Asian American fathers, like Asian American mothers, also show emotional closeness and warmth towards their children (Chao & Kim, 2000; Hardway & Fuligni, 2006). On the other hand, it is shown that both in low and middle-class families, Asian American fathers spend a relative larger amount of time in ensuring their children’s educational development than in other childrearing areas. Moreover, I find out that there is one study specifically focusing on how Asian American parents’ goals affect their involvement and their children’s educational success. From this study (Goyette & Xie, 1999), the authors show that Asian American parents (predominantly mothers) more strongly endorse the value of learning early academic skills and hold higher expectations for their children than European American parents do. Asian American parents’ (mainly mothers’), being influenced by the Asian culture belief, put strong emphasis on their children’s early academic skills. This culture belief specifically includes (a) education as the primary means to success in life and (b) preparing or socializing children for academic success (Chao, 2000; Hwa-Froelich & Westby, 2003). However, the specific dynamic of how those goals influence parents’ behaviors (especially fathers’ beliefs), which in turn influence children’s development is not discussed in this study. Moreover, Asian American mothers are 11 the predominantly main targets (more than 90%) and there are just a few fathers included in this study. Based on the existing studies focusing on Asian American fathers, we find out that that there is not a single study focusing on their involvement in their children’s literacy development. Therefore, the present study looks into how Asian American fathers may play a role in their children’s literacy development in the context of shared book reading. Specifically, I examined their shared book reading goal and beliefs. 1.6 Acculturation Level and Asian American Fathers’ Book Reading Goals Acculturation describes the process in which social and psychological exchanges appear on an individual or group that maintains successive interactions with other individuals or groups from a new culture (Berry, 1997; Redfield, Linton, & Herskovits, 1936; Ryder, Alden, & Paulhus, 2000). There are usually two theoretical frameworks to examine the acculturation process. The first theoretical framework contends that the acculturation process is a unidimensional process, in which a person either gives up the characteristics that mark their original culture and immerses themselves in a new culture, or maintains their original culture and gives up adapting themselves to the new culture. It is a single direction continuum (Cuéllar, Harris, & Jaso, 1980; Gordon, 1995).On the other hand, the second structure of acculturation argues two independent dimensions in the acculturation process. Specifically, people maintain the necessary characteristics of their original culture as well as adapting to the host culture (Berry, 1997; Ryder et al., 2000). It provides a metric that an individual immigrant can identify themselves as either being acculturated to one culture, two cultures or neither culture (Chung et al., 2004). Studies that have been carried out to examine the Asian 12 American parents’ child-rearing practices show that there is a bi-cultural trend among those parents. On one hand, Asian American parents start to demonstrate a shift away from their traditional child-rearing practice and behaviors (Kobayashi & Power, 1989; Rabain & Wornham, 1990; Kelly & Tseng, 1992; Delgado-Gaitan, 1993; Field, 1993). One of those research focuses on comparing Chinese American and Caucasian American mothers’ child-rearing goals and specific parenting techniques in 1992. From this study, Chinese mothers still rely on their original culture by demonstrating more physical control when establish discipline with their children compared to their Caucasian American counterparts who treat their children more responsively and sensitively. However, results also reveal that immigrant Chinese mothers and American mothers are sharing the similar child-rearing goals (children’s development of politeness, self-reliance, concerns for other as well as knowledge and emotional adjustment, etc). Moreover, Chinese American mothers also start to use more reasoning with their children, which is found common among Caucasian American mothers when they deal with their children. This study tells us immigrant young mothers are demonstrating a shift away from their traditional culture and are also influenced by western culture after they move to America (Kelly & Tseng, 1992). In 1997, one study examined the patterns of Indian American fathers’ involvement with their younger children as well as whether fathers coming from more acculturated families would involve more actively and diversely compared to the fathers from less acculturated families. Those fathers in this study are divided into three groups: engaged; caretaker and disengaged and it is found that the engaged fathers rank top in all the terms designed to 13 measure fathers’ involvement compared to the other two types of fathers. This study finally shows that fathers from more acculturated families demonstrate much more diverse and active engagement in their involvement with their children compared to those from less acculturated families (Jain & Belsky, 1997). In another study focusing on Chinese American fathers’ involvement in relation to their children’s social, emotional development, we can see that Chinese American fathers in general emphasize on constructing and maintaining their authority and discipline when spending time with their children. However, the more acculturated fathers show more interest in engaging themselves in the decision-making process that values children’s independent opinions compared to less acculturated fathers (Wu, 2005). Meanwhile, on the other hand, some studies targeting Asian American parents also demonstrate that they are still deeply influenced by their traditional culture when it comes to their children’s academic performance. Asian American culture treasures children’s academic success and perceives it as a way to prepare children ready for a better living in the future (Chao, 2000; Hwa-Froelich & Westby, 2003). A number of past studies comparing the child-rearing practices among Chinese, immigrant Chinese, and Caucasian-American parents showed that immigrant Chinese parents still emphasize the value of academic achievement as much as native Chinese parents do, which is much greater than Caucasian American parents (Ho, 1981; Chao, 1983; Hsu, 1985; Wolf, 1970). Another study conducted in 1990 also shows that 60 percent of Asian-American parents in their study still teach their preschoolers basic reading, writing and math (Schneider, B. & Lee, Y. 1990). Moreover, in recent years, there is one study specifically 14 focusing on comparing Asian American and European American parents’ beliefs about their children’s academic development during the transition to school. This study indicates that the more acculturated Asian American parents would place relatively less emphasis on academic success than parents who are less acculturated. It seems that the level of acculturation of parents influences their beliefs and goals about children’s academic success. Presumably, more acculturated and assimilated Asian American parents would place relatively less emphasis on academic success than would parents who are less acculturated (Sy & Schulenberg, 2005). Based on the above research, we can see that Asian American parents’ child-rearing practice is showing a bi-dimensional nature, in which they maintain that children’s academic success and high discipline are of key importance, which are essential characteristics to their original culture. However, at the same time, there is also a trend that Asian American parents, especially those coming from a more acculturated family, start to show less emphasis on children’s academic success. Meanwhile, they emphasize more that their children should have the following characteristics: independence; reasoning; decision-making and critical thinking. In my study here, I will examine whether Asian American fathers’ acculturation is specifically associated with their goals about shared book reading practice with their preschoolers and how it is associated. 1.7 Family’s SES and Fathers’ Goal From a theoretical perspective, the idea that family’s SES differences will influence children’s outcome is well supported by Brofenbrener’s ecological theory concerning 15 themacrosystem. Macrosystem describes the culture in which individuals live. The cultural contexts refer to their socioeconomic status, poverty as well as their ethnicity. Specifically, parents’ different education, income as well as their occupation and cultural identity are all included as factors that will cast an influence on children’s developmental outcomes within this subsystem. From empirical research that have been conducted in the USA, that socioeconomic status (SES) differences influencing children’s reading and educational outcomes is ubiquitous, stubbornly persistent, and well documented (Arnold & Doctoroff, 2003; Duncan, Yeung, Brooks-Gunn, & Smith, 1998; Lee & Burkam, 2002; Yeung, Linver, & Brooks-Gunn, 2002). Children coming from low-SES environments master language skills much more slowly and at the same time they also exhibit delayed letter recognition and phonological awareness. Thus, compared to children coming from middle or higher SES families, they are more likely to be at risk for reading difficulties (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998; Aikens & Barbarin, 2008). Meanwhile, there are a growing number of studies indicating that families’ SES also cast a strong impact on parents’ book reading practices and their goals. One study targeting at how parents from middle-class European families treat book reading find out that parents have expressed that reading to young children should be fun and engaging for the child. Moreover, it should also involve eliciting the child’s participation in discussing the book (van Kleek, 2006). In her groundbreaking longitudinal study of the literacy usage among three different socioeconomic communities in the southeastern United States, the author discovers that parents bear different goals for their children’s literacy development while having 16 literacy-related activities. For those parents coming from the families with high socioeconomic status, children's narrative skills that require many verbal explications instead of mere gestures are highly praised and encouraged. At the same time, those children are also encouraged to question the adults’ narratives. Therefore, compared to the children growing up in the working class families, children growing up in high SES families master more features of the written text as well as a stronger oral speaking ability (Heath, 1983). In1992, another study examined the parent-child interactions in the home environments of six low-socioeconomic Latino American families (Delgado-Gaitan, 1992). From the research, we know that most of the parent-child interactions, book reading, for example, focuses mainly on school-related tasks and meanwhile some parents also pass down their cultural knowledge through book reading. The researcher documents that the educational values of Latino American families are shaped by low socioeconomic status and parents’ low level of formal education in Mexico or the United States. In 2010, another research focused on three low-socioeconomic families. The researcher discovers even though parents’ literacy practice goals vary, children’s better school homework performance is mainly emphasized; there are also parental goals for children’s self-improvement, entertainment, etc. Families cherish the role literacy activities playing in helping their children gain more middle-class “cultural capital," which are regarded as critical to achieving a better social status and life (Li, 2010). Among the three measures composite families’ SES (income, occupation and education), the measure of parental income is found to have the greatest impact on children’s ability-related aspects and achievement during their early and middle childhood. This is 17 especially true for children from low-income families (Duncan, Yeung, Brooks-Gunn, & Smith, 1998) Moreover, families’ income is also found significant in influencing parents’ shared book reading goal. One study was conducted to explore parents’ goals about ways to help their children to learn in 1997. It is indicated that generally parents initiate book reading with their children either from the entertainment perspective where more interactive activities take place (e.g., shared book reading); or skills development perspective where mere specific literacy-related skills take place (e.g., completing workbooks and reviewing flash-cards). According to this study, there is a trend among parents from low income families that they are more likely to put a high emphasis on a skills orientation view than those from middle income families (Sonnenschein et al., 1997). In 1988, one study examined the literacy practice in four low-income African America urban families (Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988). The researchers find out that the families taking part in this research apply literacy for a wide variety of purposes in different situations. Specifically, for some parents, reading with their children offers their children the opportunity to explore their personal identities as well as a better understanding of daily life’s social, political, and economic conditions. On the other hand, some parents think that reading provides their children a tool for their better economic conditions in the future. The above research and empirical practice targeting at goals of parents while having literacy-related activities indicate that there are variations of parental goals based on the family’s social economic status, especially on their families’ income. However, there seems to be a trend that when compared to parents from middle or higher income families, parents 18 from low-income families seem to hold the goals that relevant literacy practices happening at home should mostly relate to their children’s school performance. Even though very few of the above research targeting at the goals of Asian American families carrying out book reading practice, let alone the goals of Asian American fathers doing literacy-related activities at home. There is some research exploring Asian American fathers from different SES family and their different emphases for their children’s development. In one of the research studies, we know that parents, particularly fathers coming from middle-class families not only actively get involved to support children’s academic success they also put high value to their children’s morality and characteristic development. Compared to them, parents from working-class families tend just to show care for their children's academic scores (Qin & Chang, 2013). It seems that when compared to parents from the middle or higher SES families, Asian American parents from low SES families tend only to emphasize on their children's academic success, which matches what we have observed on parents from other cultures. It may cast some insight for understanding how different socioeconomic status may influence Asian American parents’ goals about book reading. 1.8 The Present Study Based on the above research and empirical studies, we can conclude that Asian American parents, in general, regardless of their families’ SES or acculturation level, tend to value their children’s academic success while they engage in children’s life. However, at the same time, we can also see that Asian American parents from higher SES and more acculturated families 19 are more likely to decrease their emphasis on mere academic success and emphasize more on what Caucasian American parents value for their children’s development. In the present study, I will examine whether Asian American fathers in general still value children’s academic success in the context of shared book reading. At the same time, whether Asian American fathers who are more acculturated or from higher SES families are more likely to show less emphasis only on child’s academic success and have more book reading goals that are more than academic-success oriented when compared to less acculturated parents or parents coming from lower SES families. Figure 1: The Theoretical Model for the Study Theoretical Model SES(annual household income) Father’s book reading goals and beliefs Father’s different behaviors Child’s different literacy development Father’s Level of Acculturation Research question one: How will Asian American fathers rate their shared book reading goals in general? In particular, do they rank the goal “learn to read” as an important goal to prepare for their children’s future academic success? 20 Research question two: Is Asian American fathers’ acculturation level associated with their goal about shared book reading with their preschoolers? Research question three: Is family SES associated with Asian American fathers’ goals about shared book reading with their preschoolers? 21 CHAPTER 2: METHODS 2.1 Participants The designed sampling strategy is that those fathers eligible to be included into this study should be those who identify themselves as Asian Americans. Twenty-four Asian American fathers were included in this study. The fathers’ ages range from 31 to 48. The mean age of all the 24 fathers is 39 with SD of 5.0. Twenty three of the participating fathers identify themselves as first-generation Americans while only 1 of them identify himself as second-generation of Asian American. Ninety percent of the included fathers come from families with middle or high income while 10 percent of them are from families with annual household income lower than 30,000. Their children’s age range was from 3 to 6, with a mean age of 4 and SD of 2.0. Twelve of those children are boys and the other half are girls. Those children were either from the two different Michigan State University related preschools or one language school that is also located in MSU. All the fathers were well informed about the purposes of this study, which are to discover the goals they have for shared book reading with their preschoolers and then to examine how their SES and acculturation level influence their goals. Each of them was given a 5-dollar gift card for their participation in the study. 2.2 Measures 2.2.1 Family’s SES: Families’ SES was measured by the annual household income, which is a widely applied measure of income. Generally for households and individuals, “income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of 22 earnings received... in a given period of time” (Case, K. 7 Fair, R 2007). 2.2.2 Fathers’ book reading goals: The Parent Goals for Shared Reading Questionnaire (Evans & Williamson, 2003) was used for the present study to ask Asian American parents how important specific purposes are when they have shared book reading with their children. It contains 41 items that are potential goals for parents while having shared book reading with their children. In one previous study concerning shared book reading goals, Audet et al (2008) identified five distinct factors that reflect different goals among Canadian and North American parents while having shared book reading with their children. The five distinct factors are: Stimulate Development, Foster Reading, Bond, Soothe the Child, and Enjoy. The items were rated for importance on a 5-point Likert-Scale (1= not important and 5= greatest importance.) To be more specific, the first subset Stimulate Development contains eleven items demonstrating parents’ purpose that they provide their children with book reading in the hope of broadening their children’s world by exposing them to various interesting facts, different culture ideas as well as different languages. The second subset of goal, Foster Reading, consists of nine items showing parents’ purpose of fostering their children’s literacy skills and language development. The third subset of goal, Bonding, includes six items showing parents’ goals to have a better relationship with their children by creating quality time with their child. Soothe is composed of six items that demonstrate parents’ purposes of relaxing their child, soothing them when they are upset and to prepare them for bedtime. At last, the final subset of goal Enjoy the Book, consists of four items representing parents’ intentions to simply provide shared book reading as some fun and enjoyment and 23 also to develop respect for books. In this present study, I looked at the specific score of Asian American parents’ goal of Foster Reading. It mainly focuses on children’s literacy and language skills development, which are considered as preparations for children’s future academic success at school. To be more specific, for our first research question, the standard of judging Asian American parents’ goal to be academic oriented or not is to look at the scores they gave to the Foster Reading goal, if the score is more than three, then we can say that they treat Foster Reading as an important goal and if it is less than three or three, then they do not treat the goal Foster Reading as an important goal for shared book reading with their preschoolers (The goal scale is a Likert-Scale ranging from score 1 to score 5). 2.2.3 Father’s acculturation level: In the present study, I examined Asian American parents’ acculturation level by applying the AAMAS scale (Chung, R. H. G., Kim, B.S.K., Abreu, J.M., 2004). It consists of 15 items and uses a 6-point Likert-Scale ranging from “1 not very much” to “6 very much”. One of the items is worded in a reverse direction. This scale explores Asian American people’s acculturation level from three dimensions (AAMAS–Culture of Origin, AAMAS–Asian American, and AAMAS–European American). In this study, I will only applied two dimensions: the Culture of Asian American and the culture of European American. In terms of the construct domains of acculturation measured by the 15 items, 10 items measure cultural behavior, 3 items measure cultural identity, and 2 items measure cultural knowledge. For data analysis, AAMAS scores are based on the average rating (ranging from 1not very much to 6 very much) for each scale across the 15 items. For the present study, I explored the 24 two sections: culture of Asian American and culture of European American. Each of the section contains 15 items, there are four factors within each section (cultural identity; language; cultural knowledge, food consumption) and each factor contains two to five items. An example of cultural identity is “How proud are you to be a part of Asian American culture; An example of language is “How well do you understand the language of Asian American culture”; An example of cultural knowledge is “How knowledgeable are you about the culture and traditions of Asian American culture”; and at last an example of food consumption is “How often do you eat the food from Asian American culture. 2.3 Procedures: I first contacted all the two preschools’ headmasters through email and then a face-to-face talk with the headmasters to ensure that they knew thoroughly about this study, the permissions were later given to me to carry out her study in both of those two preschools. Through the introduction of one professor, I got the permission to access the MSU language school. Meanwhile, approval was also gained from MSU’s Institutional Review Boards. I then visited each of the three places and talked with the responsible teachers to guarantee that they totally understand the whole project and later packages including the introduction letter about the whole study, the consent forms, acculturation scale survey and shared book reading goal questionnaires as well as the contact information were given to the responsible teachers who sent home packets of questionnaires to fathers who self-identified to the school as Asian-American. Those fathers reviewed and signed the consent forms before the present study started. 25 Fathers who felt inconvenient to complete a paper form survey or questionnaire as long as they get the package from their children contacted the researcher to request the package through email. They were all given three weeks to complete all the survey and questionnaires. Later they mailed those packets back to the researcher. For the fathers who completed the paper form survey and questionnaire, their children brought the package with a sealed envelope back to the responsible teachers, from whom I later collected all the results. In total, 40 packages had been sent out and 24 questionnaires were returned back to me. 26 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS 3.1 Descriptive Data on Fathers’ Goals for Shared Book Reading In this data, three participating fathers were missing one to two data points and each of the specific missing point was replaced by the mean rating for that particular item. The following analyses all use an alpha level of .05 for significance. As indicated by table 1, I know the ‘Mean Scores’, ‘SD’ and the ‘Range’ of each goal for the five distinct goals: Stimulate Development, Soothe, Bonding; Enjoying Books; Foster Reading. More specifically, from the “mean score” of the five distinct goals, we can see that in general, Asian American fathers think all the five goals are important while sharing a book reading with their preschoolers based on that the mean scores they gave. However, among all the goals they think as important ones, Bonding and Enjoy are given the highest scores among the five goals (even though the differences between categories are not that big), which is to say that while sharing a book with their children, Asian American fathers think that to bond with their children as well as to let their children enjoy are relatively more important than the rest three goals. They gave the third relatively higher score to the goal Foster Reading and followed by Stimulate Development and Soothing. Table 1 Mean and SD for parents’ ratings of goals for shared book reading N Foster reading 24 Bond 24 Soothe 24 Enjoy books 24 Stimulate Development 24 Valid N (listwise) 24 Mean 3.6852 3.9306 3.2847 3.9167 3.3902 27 SD 0.85670 0.64253 0.97118 0.73228 0.92456 3.2 Book Reading as an Important Way to Prepare Children’s Academic Success The goal survey I applied in this study is a 5-point Likert scale, from “1 not important at all” to “5 most important”. Therefore, a score above 3 means the goal is important to the father. To address hypothesis one, I have examined whether fathers on average rate “learn to read” as an important goal. To do this, I applied a single-sample t-test to compare the sampled fathers’ mean score on the goal Foster Reading to a score of 3. According to the result, the 24 study participating fathers had a mean score of Foster Reading of 3.69 (SD = .86) were significantly higher than the norm important goal rating score of 3, t (24) = 3.918, p = .001.Therefore, we can reject the null hypothesis (Sample drawn from a population with the mean score less than 3), which is to say the result that Foster Reading as an important goal for Asian American fathers while sharing a book with their child is statistically significant. Therefore, Asian American fathers think shared book reading is preparation for their children’s academic success is statistically supported. 3.3 Relation between Fathers’ Acculturation and Their Foster Reading Rating In this study, based on the AAMAS I have applied in this study, I examined Asian American fathers’ acculturation both from how much they maintain their Asian American culture roots as well as how much they adapt themselves to European American culture. Reasons to analyze the two aspects for their acculturation level are because their acculturation is demonstrating a bi-dimensional nature from the previous studies. Particularly, it means that Asian American parents show their tendency to adapt to American culture but at the same time they also remain their Asian culture. First of all, I examined the correlation of the two factors: remaining Asian culture and 28 adapting European American culture. The result showed that how Asian American fathers adapted to European American culture is not significantly correlated with how much they maintain their Asian culture (r (24) = -.221, p=.229). However, it also shows a weak negative relationship between how Asian American fathers adapted to European American culture and how much they maintain their Asian culture. Specifically, it shows a trend that when Asian American fathers adapt more to American culture, he will be less likely to maintain his own Asian culture. However, we need more studies and a larger sample size to further support the validity of this negative correlation between the two factors. Next, I applied correlation analysis again to examine whether there are associations between Asian American fathers’ acculturation level and their rating on the goal Foster Reading The results are as follows: I find out that how much fathers maintain their Asian American culture roots is not statistically significantly correlated with their goal rating on Foster Reading (r (24) = .039, p = .855). It indicates that there is almost no or negligible relationship between how much Asian American fathers maintain their Asian culture and their average score for Foster Reading. At the same time, we also find that how much Asian American fathers adapt to European American culture is not statistically significantly correlated with the average score on the goal Foster Reading (r (24) = .274, p = .194). Nevertheless, it shows a weak positive relationship between how a father adapts to European culture and the average score of the goal Foster Reading. Specifically, there is a trend saying that the more Asian American fathers adapt to European American culture, the higher their average scores on the goal Foster Reading will be. 29 3.4 Relations between Father’s SES and Their Foster Reading Rating I also applied the correlation analysis to examine whether family SES is associated with Asian American fathers’ rating on the goal Foster Reading. According to the result, the correlation between those fathers’ SES is not statistically significantly correlated with their goal of Foster Reading (r (24) = -.126, p = .556). However, the result also demonstrates a very weak negative relationship between the two variables. Specifically, there is a weak trend indicating that when Asian American fathers’ SES is higher, their rating score on the goal Foster Reading is lower. 30 CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION The present study aimed at examining how Asian American fathers would rate their goals while sharing a book with their children. Moreover, it also looked into possible factors that might play a role in influencing their different rating. Specifically, I looked at what is Asian American father’s most important goal in general and how they rated the goal Foster Reading. Moreover, I also focused on Asian American fathers’ acculturation level and family’s SES for possible correlation with their rating for the goal Foster Reading, which is the first study ever that targeted at this aspect. 4.1 Asian American Fathers’ Most Important Goal Based on the previous research studies targeting at Caucasian American and Canadian parents’ goals about shared book reading, there are five distinct goals (Audet et al., 2008): Stimulate Development, Foster Reading, Bonding, Soothe Child, and Enjoy Books. Enjoy Books as well as Bonding rank as the most important goals for Caucasian American parents while they carry out shared book reading with their preschoolers. These two goals are followed by Fostering Reading, Stimulating their child’s Development, and lastly Soothe Child. In this study, I also applied the same “goal rating” measure to study Asian American fathers’ goal rating while sharing a book reading with their preschoolers. Specifically, for Asian American fathers, while they share a book with their children, they regard Bonding and Enjoy Books as the most important goals, which is similar to Caucasian American and Canadian parents’ rating for their most important goals. 4.2 Asian American Fathers’ Goal for Foster Reading 31 Even though Asian American fathers do not think that Foster Reading is the most important goal, they do treat it as an important goal while they share book reading with their preschoolers. They still perceive book reading as an important way for them to prepare their children’s language and literacy skills ready for later school. It may offer some evidence to explain the phenomenon of “Model Minority”: Asian American children, on average, continue to outperform European American children in academic achievement as early as preschool. However, the formation of “Model Minority” is a process that involves a number of factors: family history, parents’ education, as well as other social factors. Therefore, we need more research studies to further support this viewpoint considering the complicated nature of the formation of “model minority” (Lee, 1994). While seeking for the reasons that may play a role in influencing how Asian American fathers rate their goal Foster Reading for shared book reading, I analyzed two specific factors: family SES and father’s acculturation level. 4.3 Association with SES I first looked into how Asian American fathers’ SES may affect their rating for the goal Foster Reading. From the research and empirical studies targeting at parents or specifically fathers from other cultures, we know that there are variations of parental goals based on the family’s socioeconomic status, especially on their families’ income. Particularly, parents from low-income families seem to hold the goals that relevant literacy practices happening at home should mostly relate to their children’s school performance, which may contribute to child’s early preparations for their future academic success (e.g., Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988, Sonnenschein, et al., 1997). Moreover, from our existing limited studies targeting at 32 Asian American parents, we know that parents from working-class families tend to show care just for their children’s academic scores when compared with parents from middle-class families. On the contrary, apart from children’s academic success, middle-class Asian American parents put high value to their children’s morality and characteristic development (Qin & Chang, 2013). The present study indicates even though the association between Asian American fathers’ SES and their goal rating for Foster Reading is not statistically significant, we see evidence demonstrating a weak negative relationship between the two factors. Specifically, when compared to fathers from a lower SES family, those from a higher SES family tend to have a lower rating on the Foster Reading, which shows that fathers with high SES tend to put less emphasis on children’s academic success while sharing a book with them. This result matches what I have explored from the past existing studies focusing on the relationship between a family’s SES and parents’ emphasis on children’s academic success (Qin & Chang, 2013). However, I also see results contradict to what the past research studies have indicated: specifically, some participants from a low or relatively lower SES family are not demonstrating that relevant literacy practices taking place at home (shared book reading) should mostly relate to their children’s later school success (literacy and language skills) (e.g., Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988, Sonnenschein, et al., 1997). On the other hand, they also think to bond with their children, to soothe their children as well as just to let them have fun are all goals to share a book with their children. Moreover, from the present study, Asian American fathers from relatively lower household income are like fathers from higher 33 income families, showing that Bonding and Enjoying the Books are the most important goals while sharing a book with their children. Interestingly, from some other studies I also find out that low SES parents from other cultures demonstrate similar goals while sharing a literacy activity with their children. In particular, low SES American parents also expect their children to just have some entertainment or some self-improvement while reading a book with them (Li, 2010); Low SES African American parents also think that literacy practice can offer their children a chance to explore their personal identities as well as a better understanding of daily life’s social, political, and economic conditions through literacy-related activities (Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988). Therefore, we can see that low SES fathers across cultures do not only emphasize their children’s academic success. Like fathers from higher SES, they also value their children’s happiness, social understanding of the world, etc. Nevertheless, while interpreting those results, we should know that, first of all, sampled fathers in this study are homogeneous. Specifically, ninety percent of the fathers coming from families with high annual household income and only 10 percent of the fathers coming from families with annual household income under 30, 000. Therefore this sample is not representative for Asian American fathers from diverse SES families (low SES families, high SES families, etc). Therefore, those results may not apply to other Asian American fathers. Moreover, another factor that may play a role in influencing low SES fathers’ goals in this study is that those sampled fathers are either Ph.D. students or faculty from a specific university. Therefore, even though they lag behind other fathers in SES, they still have a similar education degree, which may counteract the impact of low SES on their rating for 34 the goal Foster Reading (Tracey & Young, 2002) and later lead to their similar goals with fathers from higher SES. For my future studies, I will include a more heterogeneous and bigger sample to explore the true nature of the association between Asian American fathers’ SES and their shared book reading goals. Based on previous studies that target at fathers from different SES families, it is indicated that there is an association between parents’ SES and their literacy interaction goals with their preschoolers (e.g., Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988, Sonnenschein, et al., 1997). Many of those studies recruited a relatively bigger number of fathers both form high SES and low SES families and therefore the researchers could look into specifically how the difference of family SES account for variations of parents’ goal while sharing a literacy-related activity with their preschoolers (e.g., Heath, 1983). 4.4 Association with fathers’ acculturation level I then looked into the second factor: Asian American fathers’ acculturation level. From the previous research and empirical studies focusing on Asian American parents’ acculturation and their parenting practices, Asian American parents treasure children’s academic success, which is an essential trait of their original culture (e.g., Schneider, B. & Lee, Y. 1990). I have found evidence to support this aspect. All the participating fathers in this study think Foster Reading is an important goal. Specifically, they think that sharing a book with their children is an important way to prepare their children ready for their later school language and literacy skills. However, we also know from previous research studies that Asian American parents’ acculturation is demonstrating a bi-dimensional nature: apart from maintaining their original 35 cultural features regardless of their acculturation level, Asian American parents, especially those coming from a more acculturated family, start to show fewer emphases on children’s academic success. In order to find evidence for it, I first explored whether there is an association between fathers’ acculturation level and their rating for the goal Foster Reading, a strong indicator for children’s literacy and language development. I found out the association is not statistically significant, which means that how a father is acculturated to European American culture is not playing a significant role in influencing their goal rating for Foster reading. However, despite of the non-significant association between an Asian American father’s acculturation level and his rating on Foster Reading, there is a weak positive relationship between Asian American fathers’ acculturation level and their rating on the goal Foster Reading. Specifically, it shows that more acculturated Asian American fathers are showing higher rating on the goal Foster Reading. This finding is different and even contradictory to what previous studies have indicated. Specifically, from the past studies focusing on Asian American parents’ acculturation and their relationship to their parenting goals with their preschoolers, it is clearly indicated that compared to less acculturated parents, more acculturated Asian American parents demonstrate goals that are much more diverse in their involvement with children and they also value children’s independent thinking as well as their creativity more than just their children’s academic success. Therefore, the present study may indicate a potential new pattern of how Asian American fathers’ acculturation level influences their book reading goals: specifically, in the context of 36 shared book reading, more acculturated Asian American fathers show more emphasis on their children’s literacy and language skills improvement, which is key to children’s later academic success. While interpreting this new relationship, I find that there is a possibility that only in the context of shared book reading, more acculturated Asian American fathers demonstrate more emphasis on their children’s academic success. According to the existing research and empirical studies focusing on shared book reading, it is indicated that shared book reading plays a key role in contributing to a young child's literacy development (Mirian & William, 1993; De Temple & Snow, 2003), which is a key element for their future academic success. It is possible that compared to less acculturated Asian American fathers, more acculturated fathers are more aware of the literature on the benefits of shared book reading and therefore they may emphasize more on the importance of the goal Foster Reading while sharing a book with their children. It is likely that in other aspects of their child-rearing practice, more acculturated Asian American fathers may still demonstrate less emphasis on their children’s academic success and they also value their children’s other domain’s development ( Sy & Schulenberg, 2005). Nevertheless, we should also bear in mind that the present study has a small and homogeneous sample and that 96 percent of the fathers included in this study are first-generation Asian Americans. Therefore, they may not be representative for the whole Asian American fathers and so the new pattern may not apply to the whole Asian American population. Based on the findings of this study on the relationship between Asian American fathers’ 37 acculturation level and their shared book reading goal rating on Foster Reading, in the future, I would like to explore more on this relationship. First of all, I will recruit fathers from more diverse acculturation levels to examine whether this relationship I have found from this study applies to other Asian American fathers. In the meantime, I will also include more variables to predict Asian American fathers’ acculturation level (e.g., the years they reside in America). According to past studies, Chinese American fathers who resided in the US for a longer time are found emphasize their children’s decision making abilities rather than only academic success for their children (Wu, 2005). 4.5 Limitation 4.5.1 Limitation with Sample Size and the Participants: The first limitation is its small sample size. There are only 24 fathers participating in this study. Due to the very small sample size, the correlations between either fathers’ SES or their acculturation level and their rating on Foster Reading may be influenced. A larger sample size will possibly create a much clearer pattern of results about Asian American fathers’ acculturation level and their SES in relation to their goal rating. Secondly, the generalization of the results from this study is further rendered by the following four aspects that: first of all, all the participating fathers recruited in this study are fathers from several specific preschools. Those preschools are either for children whose fathers are either faculty or student from a specific university; The generalization to Asian American population is further limited by the fact that around half of the sampled fathers are Chinese fathers whose children are from Chinese language school. We know that there is a high variation among fathers from Asian countries due to their cultural and religious 38 differences and many other aspects. Therefore, how will fathers coming from other Asian cultures view book reading differently from Chinese American fathers based on their cultural differences (Sy& Schulenberg, 2005). Moreover, most of the fathers are from high SES families, a more diverse sample including Asian American fathers from different SES families will also give me a much thorough picture about how fathers rate their goals in general. Based on the past studies on Asian American fathers, we know that fathers coming from low SES will more likely to emphasize their children’s academic success (Delgado-Gaitan, 1992; Li, 2010). Therefore, in the context of shared book reading, will they rate their goals differently from fathers from high SES and emphasize more on children’s literacy and language development? At last, not all the fathers who agreed to participate in this study completed their survey and questionnaires, thus generating the possibility that those fathers who finished them perhaps the ones who are more involved in their children’s development (Wu, 2005). Overall，the sampled fathers in this study are not representative for the whole Asian American fathers. 4.5.2 Limitations with the Measures: This study only applies surveys and questionnaires as research methods, which may generate a number of following drawbacks: first of all, the researcher only uses surveys to examine Asian American fathers’ goals while sharing a book with their children. Participants who filled in the surveys may select the answers that are socially desirable, not truly reflecting what they think. Based on this evidence, we know that why Foster Reading, the indicator for children’s academic success is not the most important goal and instead Bonding and Enjoying the Book are the most important ones. Moreover, even though they rated those goals in a way that reflect how they think, there may be a gap 39 between what they did and what they remembered. Filling in a survey also depends on the participant’s memory. The participant may forget what he actually did and what he thinks he has done. Despite the above limitations, the present study is of great value for it is the first study that targets at Asian American fathers’ shared book reading with their preschoolers. Moreover, it is also the first study that examines that whether an Asian American father’s acculturation level is associated with their book reading goals about shared book reading. From this study, we know that for the first time that Asian American fathers think that shared book reading with their preschoolers is an important way to prepare their children ready for school academic achievement later. It also shows that despite of their goal for children’s later academic success, Asian American fathers show bigger emphasis (higher score on the goals: Bonding and Enjoying the Book) on constructing bond and closeness with children or just offering children a relaxing and interesting activity. Meanwhile, we also know contrary to my original assumption, we know that Asian American fathers’ acculturation level is positively related with their rating of the goal Foster Reading. In conclusion, from the present study, we have a general understanding about Asian American fathers’ goals about shared book reading with their preschoolers, which fills in a huge research gap. Moreover, it offers more evidence to the importance of fathers’ involvement in relation to their children’s development across different cultures. 40 APPENDICES 41 APPENDIX A: Introduction to Research Study This letter is forwarded to you by your child in the hopes that you will join us in a research project exploring Asian American fathers’ shared book reading goals with your children. Your participation in this study will help science to understand how Asian American fathers support and contribute to their children’s literacy development in the first few years of their life. Enclosed in this packet you will find an informed consent form and a set of short surveys. If you are willing to participate, sign the informed consent form and complete the surveys. Please fill out these surveys as completely as you can. If you prefer not to answer a question, you may leave it blank. All responses are completely anonymous. You do not need to write your or your child’s name on any of them. These surveys will require about 20 minutes of your time. Please return the signed consent form and completed surveys within two weeks using the envelope provided. Thank you for your participation. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Tan Run at tanrun@msu.edu or 517-897-6858. 42 APPENDIX B: Demographic Questionnaire In the first part of the questionnaire we are going to ask you some basic demographic information. All the information will be treated anonymously. 1. Your child’s gender □ Female □ Male 2. What is your age? _____ years old 3. How would you like to identify yourself? □ First-generation Asian American □ □ Third or above generation Asian American Second-generation Asian American 4. Annual household income □ Below 10,000 USD □ Between 10,000 to 30,000 USD □ Between 30,000 to 50,000 USD □ Between 50,000 to 100,000USD □ Above 100,000 USD 43 APPENDIX C: Survey of Goals for Shared Reading (SGSR; Evans & Williamson, 2003) The second part of the questionnaire is about your views of reading with your child and what you hope will be gained from it.There are no right or wrong answers. We are simply interested in the viewpoint from you. Please rate the importance of each of the following possible goals when reading with your child using a scale from “1” meaning not an important purpose to “5” being a purpose of great importance. How important are the following goals for you not important most important when reading with your child? 1 2 3 4 5 Develop ability to see different perspectives □ □ □ □ □ Experience physical closeness with child □ □ □ □ □ Learn new facts and things about the world □ □ □ □ □ Share quality time with child □ □ □ □ □ Experience/understand different emotional responses Develop problem-solving abilities □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ Share an activity I enjoy with my child □ □ □ □ □ Expose to different books and genres □ □ □ □ □ For child to have fun □ □ □ □ □ Expand child’s world □ □ □ □ □ Monitor the development of children’s literacy skills Develop child’s vocabulary □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ Discuss new ideas and explain new concepts □ □ □ □ □ Strengthen relationship with child □ □ □ □ □ Create positive childhood experience to remember Develop moral/ethics through books □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ Expose to different types of language Expose to different types of language Soothe child when he or she is upset □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ Develop child’s respect for literature and books □ □ □ □ □ Increase chance child will later read for enjoyment Help child learn to read □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ Give my child 1:1 attention □ □ □ □ □ 44 Develop a predictable bedtime routine □ □ □ □ □ Prepare my child for bed/sleep □ □ □ □ □ Give experience participating in quiet activities □ □ □ □ □ Help my child relax □ □ □ □ □ Develop confidence in learning to read □ □ □ □ □ Prepare child for formal reading instruction □ □ □ □ □ Develop understanding of sound to letter correspondence For child to enjoy hearing a good story □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ Learn about people, places, and things □ □ □ □ □ Provide a context for the teaching of literacy skills Learn and understand different forms of humor □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ Increase knowledge of printed letters and words Increase reading comprehension skills □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ To make reading a habit □ □ □ □ □ 45 APPENDIX D: Asian American Multidimensional Acculturation Scale (AAMAS) The following survey contains two parts and the first part examines how much you perceive yourself connects to Asian American culture and the second part examines how much you consider yourself related to European American culture. Please indicate your answer on a scale of 1 to 6, whereas “1” means not at all and “6” means very much Part A: In the following you will be presented with a range Not at all Very much of questions regarding Asian American culture. 1 2 3 4 5 6 How much do you feel you have in common with people from Asian American culture? How much do you interact and associate with people from Asian American culture? How knowledgeable are you about the history of Asian American culture? How much would you like to interact and associate with people from Asian American culture? How often do you actually eat the food of Asian American culture How negative do you feel about people from Asian American culture □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ How well do you speak the language of Asian American culture How knowledgeable are you about the culture and traditions of Asian American culture How well do you read and write in the language of Asian American culture How often do you listen to music or look at movies and magazines from Asian American culture How much do you identify with Asian American culture How well do you understand the language of Asian American culture How much do you actually practice the traditions and keep the holidays from Asian American culture How much do you like the food of Asian American culture How proud are you to be a part of Asian American culture □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ 46 Part B In the following you will be presented with a range Not at all of questions regarding European American culture. How much do you feel you have in common with people from European American culture? How much do you interact and associate with people from European American culture? How knowledgeable are you about the history of European American culture? How much would you like to interact and associate with people from European American culture? How often do you actually eat the food of European American culture How negative do you feel about people from European American culture How well do you speak the language of European American culture How knowledgeable are you about the culture and traditions of European American culture How well do you read and write in the language of European American culture How often do you listen to music or look at movies and magazines from European American culture How much do you identify with European American culture How well do you understand the language of European American culture How much do you actually practice the traditions and keep the holidays from European American culture How much do you like the food of European American culture How proud are you to be a part of European American culture 47 Very much 1 2 3 4 5 6 □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ REFERENCES 48 REFERENCES Aikens, N. 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