Measurement in Family Communication

Abstract

This chapter highlights a few methodological trends and issues in the area of family communication scholarship. Family communication scholarship has continued to expand and grow in the communication discipline since its emergence in the 1970s. A substantial amount of work in the family communication area includes the conceptualization, measurement, and operationalization of family communication-based constructs and variables. The selected measures have also been usefully connected to different theoretical frameworks and theoretical development in family communication. Family privacy orientations are conceptualized as a part of communication privacy management theory. Family communication scholars are actively pushing the boundaries of scholarship to refine our understanding of theory and practice and the role that family communication plays in life. Few single-item measures are used in the family communication scholarship, which is a positive trend. Communication scholars are teasing out nuances of measuring constructs through use of multiple items that reflect slightly different language and examples.