Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Human Ecology: Human Development and Family Science

Parental sexual messages received by adolescents has been researched, but mainly in the context of maternal sexual communication; research around influences of paternal sexual communication is minimal. In addition, there have been no studies found that research parental (mothers and fathers) sexual messages adolescents receive and how they influence adolescent sexual assertiveness or sexual experience. The current study seeks to explore these relationships as well as the adherence to the sexual double standard. A random sample of 6000 domestic, undergraduate students (18-24 years old) was sampled; 1222 self-reported heterosexuals consented to the confidential, on-line survey and of these, 1178 participants the completed the “paternal” and 1186 completed the “paternal” sexual messages scales. Findings suggest there is a statistically significant relationship between most parental sexual messages adolescents receive and adolescent sexual assertiveness and sexual experiences. For instance, an increased amount of “positive” sexual messages are related to higher self-reported adolescent sexual assertiveness and “negative” sexual messages are related to lower self-reported adolescent sexual assertiveness. Additional research is recommended to include other potential factors such as sexual messages received from media, peers, and religion to study to extent of these influences on adolescent sexual assertiveness and sexual experiences.

Committee: Julianne Serovich PhD (Advisor); Amy Bonomi PhD (Committee Member); Randi Love PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Families and Family Life

PHD, Kent State University, 2016, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

This study examined how parents communicate with their preschool-aged children (aged 2 to 5) about nutrition and how such parent-child interactions can shape the way preschoolers think about and approach eating. Parents (N=202) reported on their typical nutritional communication with their preschoolers and their perceptions of preschoolers' eating-related attitudes and behaviors. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that parents exchange both verbal nutritional messages (i.e., explanatory, punishing contingency, rewarding contingency, and restrictive) and nonverbal nutritional messages (i.e., healthy modeling, unhealthy modeling, and monitoring) with their preschool-aged children. Findings contribute to a more specific and comprehensive understanding of nutritional communication processes among parents and preschoolers and provide a new instrument for measuring parental nutritional communication. In addition, multiple regression analysis suggested that parental nutritional messages can influence parental perceptions of preschoolers' eating-related attitudes and behaviors in both productive and maladaptive fashions. According to their parents' perspectives, preschoolers were more likely to know that healthy eating is important and were more likely to care about the benefits of proper nutrition when their parents communicated using explanatory messages and healthy modeling messages. Preschoolers whose parents said that their children had these positive attitudes toward nutrition also were perceived to be more apt to engage in healthy eating patterns. Furthermore, parents' healthy modeling messages were found to predict their perceptions of preschoolers' healthy eating patterns, and parents' unhealthy modeling messages predicted parental perceptions of preschoolers' unhealthy eating patterns. Results add to theoretical and practical knowledge of the connections between parental nutritional communication and parental perceptions of preschoolers' eating-related a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Nichole Egbert Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Natalie Caine-Bish Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jeffrey Child Ph.D. (Committee Member); Catherine Goodall Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

MA, Kent State University, 2011, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

As the use of Facebook continues to grow, individuals aged 35 and older represent the fastest growing demographic. Parents and children now have the opportunity to connect with each other through the website. However, research investigating parent/child Facebook interaction remains scarce. This thesis utilizes Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory to better understand young adults' decisions regarding parental Facebook friend requests. In addition, the relational characteristics of parental trust and relational quality are examined in relation to young adults' decisions. Results indicate young adults generally accept friend requests from their parents while making few, if any, changes to their privacy management practices. Parental trust and relational quality are related to young adults' decisions when faced with a mother's friend request, but not those received from a father. Explanations for the differences in results by parent are elucidated. This study adds to a growing body of research demonstrating that individuals use Facebook to connect with a multitude of face-to-face social ties and addresses implications for this phenomenon.

Committee: Jeffrey Child Ph.D. (Advisor); Mei-Chen Lin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jung Hyun Kim Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Families and Family Life; Mass Media

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2024, Educational Administration

This dissertation examines parents and teachers' perceptions of effective parental involvement in education, situated within Epstein et al.'s (2009) framework of six typologies of parental participation. The study, through a comprehensive comparative analysis, reveals critical insights into the disparities and commonalities in how parents and teachers perceive effective parental involvement and its impact on student achievement. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, incorporating quantitative measures of parental and teacher perceptions alongside qualitative insights gained from the Turkleton Community Schools (TCS) environment.

Committee: James Olive Ph. D (Committee Chair); Mary Beth Reardon Ph. D (Committee Member); Derek Arrowood Ph. D (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Leadership; Educational Theory; Elementary Education

MA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Lifespan Development and Educational Sciences

Studies consistently show that strong caregiver-child relationships, positive parent-child communication, and parental monitoring reduce the likelihood of tobacco use. However, the specific protective mechanism through which this critical family processes for example, parental communication (father-child and mother-child dyad), and parental monitoring within caregiver-child relationships and how they affect teen tobacco use, with particular attention given to gender-specific differences is limited. Guided by family systems theory, this study examined how caregiver-child relationships, parental monitoring, and parent-child communication interplay influence the tobacco use of teenagers. This study used data from the year 15 follow-up from the Future of Family and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) to assess the mediation role of parental monitoring and parent-child communication (Father-child and mother-child dyad) on the relationship between the caregiver-child relationship and teen tobacco use. Lastly, I examined the gender-specific difference in the impact of father-child and mother-child communication on teen tobacco use. The results indicated that caregiver-child relationships were found to predict teen tobacco use. Also, parental monitoring was found to mediate the relationship between caregiver-child relationship and teen tobacco use. On the contrary, parent-child communication was not found to mediate the relationship between caregiver-child relationships and teen tobacco use. However, variation existed in the gender-specific difference in the effect of father-child and mother-child communication in influencing teen tobacco use. Mother-child communication appears to have a more significant effect compared to father-child communication. These results provide evidence in support of prevention and intervention programs aimed at reducing teen tobacco use and promoting positive caregiver-child relationships.

Committee: Jing Zhang Dr. (Advisor); Walker Kathleen Dr. (Committee Member); Samantha Jones Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Behaviorial Sciences

Bachelor of Arts, Walsh University, 2019, Honors

The purpose of this study was to analyze the factors that contributed to the development of a young adult's attitudes toward intimacy. Two hundred forty-seven participants (191 females, 48 males, 7 other) completed the survey which utilized four measures. The Intimacy Attitudes Scale was used to measure attitudes toward various intimate situations, including physical and emotional closeness. Questions taken from a survey by Harvard University and the Kaiser Family Foundation were used to gauge the type of sex education that a person received in their youth. The Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale was utilized to measure the quality of parental communication as being more positive or more problematic. The Religious Commitment Inventory-10 was used to measure the level of religious commitment. It was hypothesized that the impact of sex education would vary according to a person's religious commitment as well as their quality of parental communication. Sex education did not interact significantly with religious commitment or the quality of parental communication. It was hypothesized that parental communication would have the strongest impact on intimacy attitudes. Parental communication has significant relationships with fear of intimacy and avoidance of intimacy. There was no relationship between parental communication and attraction or sexual closeness.

Committee: Treasure Byrge (Other) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Psychology; Social Psychology; Social Research

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2011, Communication

The aim of this study was to test a model predicting parental mediation strategies from cultural dimensions and family communication patterns (FCP). Parents from India (n=57) and the United States (n=56) completed a survey for this study. It was proposed that cultural dimensions of individualism-collectivism, power distance and self-construal are related to family communication patterns. Also it was hypothesized that the effect of family communication patterns on various parental mediation strategies would be moderated by perceived risk of media exposure (PRME). The broad goal of the study was to establish FCPs as the mediators between cultural dimensions and parental mediation strategies. Results supported the association between cultural dimensions and family communication patterns. Also it was found that socio oriented parents with high PRME tend to use restrictive mediation. Concept orientation mediated the effect of individualism on active mediation and the effect of independent self-construal on active mediation.  

Committee: Amy Nathanson PhD (Advisor); David Ewoldsen PhD. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Educational Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, Communication

This study was designed to determine how parents discuss advertising and consumer issues with their children and how children perceive these discussions. In addition, the effectiveness of parent-administered, active mediation at reducing the materialistic attitudes of five- to seven-year-old children was tested. To this end, surveys were administered to 96 parents and children who then participated in an experiment. Parent-child dyads were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: no mediation control, realism active mediation, or desirability active mediation. Parents then were trained to administer their respective mediation strategies in their homes for a week. At the end of the week, the children were brought back to view and provide their reactions to a series of commercials. In spite of the differences reported by parents and children, a moderate positive correlation was found between the reports of mediation. In addition, although children in the realism mediation condition did not exhibit lower materialistic attitudes, those children in the desirability mediation condition did. Finally, concept-oriented consumer communication was negatively related to materialistic attitudes. Overall, this study determined that desirability mediation and concept-oriented communication are ways for parents to reduce the unintended negative effects of advertising on young children. Furthermore, training parents to deliver mediation strategies designed to alter the perceptions of character desirability was effective. Future research should consider ways to refine parent training sessions and desirability mediation messages in order to provide parents with practical advice.

Committee: Amy Nathanson (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Science, Miami University, 2011, Family and Child Studies

The purpose of the study is to investigate parental involvement on the student's educational attainment in High School. Previous research has that parent involvement is related to educational outcomes for children of young ages but there has not been as much research on high school aged children. It is anticipated that a strong, positive parent-child relationship and high parent(s) expectations for the child will be associated with successful educational attainment as measured by receiving a high school diploma Data from the Educational Longitudinal Study: 2002. Logistic regression was used to analyze whether or not the student graduated from high school. The outcome variable is whether or not the student graduated from high school and the predictor variable consists of different elements of parental involvement. This study will help contribute to the literature already in existence aiming to portray positive results, rather than negative ones, for the poor African American community.

Committee: Sellers Sherrill Dr. (Committee Chair); Alfred Joseph Dr. (Committee Member); Gary Peterson Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; Education