Expecting my child to become “dragon” – development of the Chinese parental expectation on child’s future scale

Abstract

This paper describes a study in which an assessment tool of parental expectation on child’s future was developed. Based on focus group interviews of parents and adolescents in Hong Kong, five dimensions of parental expectation on child’s future were identified, including “educational achievement”, “self-reliance”, “occupation”, “family obligation”, and “conduct”. In conjunction with the Chinese literature on parental expectations, the Chinese Parental Expectation on Child’s Future Scale was developed. To assess the content validity of the measure, a panel of experts was invited to determine the relevance, clarity, and representativeness of the developed items and the views of the experts were used to further modify the scale. This study is a pioneer attempt to assess parental expectation on child’s future in different Chinese contexts.