Father involvement in Hong Kong: By multitrait-multimethod model and item response theory (IRT)

Abstract

According to the study by Hawkins et al. (2002), in Western context, father involvement was found to consist of nine factors while in the Mainland Chinese context, father involvement was found to consist of four factors (Yin, Li, & Yang, 2012). The current study was grounded on the Chinese version of the Inventory of Father Involvement (IFI-C; Yin et al., 2012) to examine the factorial structure of father involvement in Hong Kong Chinese context. To extend the generalizability of the IFI-C from fathers to mothers, 591 couples were recruited and multitrait-multimethod model: a multiple-indicator CT-C(M-1) model (Eid, Lischetzke, Nussbeck, & Trierweiler, 2003) was employed. The results indicated that Hong Kong Chinese father involvement father was comparable to Hawkins' 9-factor model. To study the differences between mothers' perception and fathers' self-perceptions of father involvement, differential item functioning (DIF) was examined. There were significant differences in the area of “school encouragement”, “mother support”, “providing”, “time and talking together” and “developing talents and future concerns”. The results also suggested that maternal gatekeeping was unlikely to exist in the sampled Hong Kong Chinese families. On the other hand, transgenerational schemata, especially gender stereotypes, might be active.