Community-Engaged Development of a Parent-Child Book Reading Wise Intervention

Authors

Po-hun Chou, Florida International UniversityFollow

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Major/Program

Psychology

First Advisor's Name

Stacy L. Frazier

First Advisor's Committee Title

Committee chair

Second Advisor's Name

Katie Hart

Second Advisor's Committee Title

Committee member

Third Advisor's Name

Shannon Pruden

Third Advisor's Committee Title

Committee member

Fourth Advisor's Name

Angela Salmon

Fourth Advisor's Committee Title

Committee member

Keywords

community-engaged research, children's books, dissemination science, poverty, mental health

Date of Defense

5-27-2020

Abstract

Children living in communities with high rates of poverty experience significant detriment to their academic skills and social, emotional, and behavioral health. Though a range of evidence-based interventions exist that aim to reduce these disparities, they face substantial barriers (e.g., related to financial and human resources, opportunity cost to target families, variable fit across the diverse populations in low-income households). In contrast, wise interventions use psychologically precise pathways to produce small, recursive changes that result in significant benefits. As such, they represent a resource efficient strategy with the potential for considerable impact with contextual adaptation. The current study utilized social marketing research strategies in the context of an academic-community partnership to design, iteratively refine, and examine an emotion-enhanced children’s book – or picture book infused with opportunities to label and explain character emotions – as a wise intervention based in parent-child book reading, an especially warm and nurturing form of parent-child interaction. We employed the Social Marketing Assessment and Response Tool (SMART Model) to guide intervention development and evaluation. In SMART Phases 2-4 (Formative Research), end-users (n=14) completed surveys on basic demographic information, mental health, current beliefs about joint book reading and ongoing practices, and perspectives and response styles to children’s emotions. We then engaged participants in focus groups and interviews to obtain insights regarding the perceived need and preferred characteristics of the proposed intervention. Feedback informed the design of prototype components (i.e., book characters and storylines) that we presented to both new and returning end-users (n=10) for feedback in SMART Phase 5 (Development) pre-testing. Stakeholders (i.e., end-users) again completed surveys on basic demographic information, mental health, current beliefs about joint book reading and ongoing practices, and perspectives and response styles to children’s emotions, and participated in interviews to provide additional feedback. Results from Phase 5 pre-testing informed iterative refinement, and a completed intervention was evaluated by a broad audience via an online survey (n=31) to examine acceptability, usability, and perceived effectiveness.

Identifier

FIDC010192

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1349-6362

Previously Published In

Chou, T., & Frazier, S.L. (in press). CORE: Compassion Oriented Reflection and Engagement to Guide Academic-Community Partnership. Journal of Participatory Research Methods.

Chou, T., & Frazier, S.L. (2019). Supporting ethical practice in community-engaged research with 4R: Respond, Record, Reflect, and Revise. Ethics & Behavior.

Recommended Citation

Chou, Po-hun, "Community-Engaged Development of a Parent-Child Book Reading Wise Intervention" (2020). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 4832.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/4832