What is the topic of your dissertation?
In clinical and developmental studies of children and families, using multiple informants has become a “gold standard.” Yet different informants (e.g., parents and children) often provide inconsistent information regarding the same study construct, which poses challenges for researchers and clinicians to interpret and handle informant discordance. In my dissertation paper, which has been published in American Psychologist, I used meta-analysis to investigate the extent and potential moderators of the relation between parent- and adolescent-reported parenting. By systematically synthesizing 313 studies involving both parent- and adolescent-reported parenting, this study demonstrated that the levels of parent-adolescent discordance were higher for younger (versus older) and male (versus female) adolescents, for nonclinical parents (versus parents with internalizing symptoms), in more individualistic societies such as the U.S. and in ethnic minority (versus white), low (versus high) socioeconomic status and nonintact (versus intact) families among U.S. samples.
I also qualitatively reviewed 36 studies that directly examined how parent-adolescent discordance in perceptions of parenting relates to adolescent outcomes. I revealed current approaches and main findings in studies of parent-adolescent discordance and discussed the problems and/or advantages of each approach. My work highlights that parent-adolescent discordance in reports of parenting should not be discarded as merely measurement error. Instead, such discordance has substantive meaning and significant implications for adolescent development. The findings have broad implications for social science methodology concerning how to interpret and handle informant discordance and developmental research regarding how parent-adolescent discordance in perceptions relate to adolescent outcomes. The findings also have clinical applications as family therapists and clinicians can use the information to better decide how to use parent and adolescent reports and to target families with higher levels of parent-adolescent discordance for preventive interventions.
How did you come up with the idea for your dissertation research?
The idea started when I was working on my paper, titled “Parent–adolescent discrepancies in reports of parenting and adolescent outcomes in Mexican immigrant familiesopens in new window.” In the process of writing that paper, I noticed that there was not a systematic review on the issue of parent-adolescent discrepancies in reports of parenting, despite the prevalence of these discrepancies and an increasing number of scholars who realized that discrepancies may not just reflect measurement error.
How did you fund your dissertation research?
I received the Graduate School Continuing Fellowship and Graduate School Dissertation Writing Fellowship, which allowed me to focus on writing my dissertation in the fourth year (i.e., my last year). I also received enormous support from my dissertation advisers, Su Yeong Kim, PhD, and Aprile D. Benner, PhD, and many graduate and undergraduate research assistants. All the research assistants participated in my study to gain research experience and did not receive any payments. I feel very fortunate that there are so many brilliant students who are interested in working with me on this important topic.
What advice would you give graduate students who are proposing or working on their dissertation research?
Doing a dissertation is not easy. It is important to be proactive and use all resources available, connect to those who can support your research as well as those who can support you personally and be brave to discuss with experts in the field even if they did not know you. They are usually very nice and supportive. For example, I received very helpful suggestions from two experts in studying informant discrepancies who I did not know before I discussed with them about my dissertation, Andres De Los Reyes, PhD, and Robert Laird, PhD. Last but not least, work hard, yet be kind to yourself.
What are you working on now?
My research uncovers the cognitive, academic, behavioral and socioemotional development of children and adolescents in underrepresented groups including ethnic minorities and individuals with genetic diseases, particularly neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1).
Specifically, I have three established lines of research and will continue to pursue these lines of research:
- Assessing how sociocultural factors (e.g., discrimination) influence family processes, and adolescent socio-emotional, behavioral, academic and health outcomes, among ethnic minority and immigrant families.
- Addressing a common and challenging methodological issue in developmental and clinical science — informant discrepancies in reports of family process and child outcome variables, by examining the patterns, antecedents and consequences of discrepancies.
- Understanding the neurocognitive outcomes of individuals with NF1.
Over 80% of individuals with NF1 have certain cognitive impairments, which negatively impact their quality of life. I just submitted an R21 grant proposal, which aims to comprehensively understand the natural history of cognitive functioning across the lifespan and identify biological and demographic predictors of cognitive development in individuals with NF1 as well as to test NF-specific psychometric properties of the cognitive measures. The project involves the collaboration of 14 institutes across the world.
This project is of vital importance to understanding the natural history of cognitive development in NF1, to provide much-needed information on the psychometric properties of cognitive measures in this rare disease population, to help achieve consensus regarding the most appropriate clinical outcome measures for NF1 neurocognitive clinical trials, and to stimulate collaborative research efforts in the NF1 scientific community. Ultimately, the project will facilitate the identification of effective intervention programs aiming to improve the cognitive functioning of individuals with NF1.