應用多層面量表法探討中美知識份子對子女的期望

Abstract

本研究應用多層面量表法來探討中美文化上父母期望的差異情形。十個在美國留學的中國留學生家庭與十個在同校就讀的美國研究生家庭，根據孩子的性別、出生別、年齡、家庭人口數，以及父母教育水準加以配對，作為本研究的取樣。這些家庭中，父母對子女的期望是用父母對子女的期望量表加以評量。量表的內容包括十個人格特性的形容詞。這些形容詞可分成兩類，一類是社會能力另一類是知性能力，每類各有五個形容詞。請父母根據他們對子女的期望加以評等。此外，父母對於這十個形容詞的知覺，則是他們對形容詞之間相似程度的衡量。俟上述二項資料收集完畢，應用多層面量表法加以分析，而繪出父母對子女的期望圖。由期望圖所顯示的期望等第，經Mann-Whitney U test的考驗，發現美國父母親對子女的期望，不偏知性能力也不偏社會能力，而中國父母親則對子女的社會能力期望顯著地高於知性能力，這種結果部份支持了前人研究的發現。

The present study was an exploratory attempt of using multidimensionalscaling (MDS) on the cross-cultural study of parental expectation among middle-class young parents between America and China.Parents of 20 families (10 American, 10 Chinese) matched according tothe child`s sex, birth order, age, family size and parents` educational, were asked to indicate their expectations for their child`s ability on the parental expectation inventory, and also indicate the similarity of 10 personality trait adjectives on similarity ranking inventory. MDS analysis was then employed to generate the configuration of preference map of the parental expectation.The preference ranking of parental expectation as indicated by the preference map was then analyzed by Mann-Whitney U Test. The results showed that the American parents had somewhat equal expectation of their child`s social ability and intellectual ability. Whereas, the Chinese parents had higher expectation of their child`s social ability than intellectual ability.The limitations of this study and the problems encountered by using MDS on cross-cultural study of parental expectation were also discussed.