Correlational study: the effect of eating dinner at home on relationship between parents and children

As an international student, I realize that American families are now spending less time together for dinner; rather each member eats out on his/her own. Being far away from home for almost 2 year, I am more aware of the importance and meaning of eating at home in both physical and emotional sense. Today I’d want to conduct a correlational study researching the relationship of two variables: eating dinner at home and relationship between parents and children.

In order to find the above correlation, I use questionnaires report. I will collect data from 2 different groups: 1 group from 10- 18 representing for children and 1 group from 30-50 representing for parents. Attendants will be asked about average time to eat dinner at home together per week. Then some basic background of parents and children are given to see how much they know each other such as how old’ re your parents/ children? What do your parents do now? Do you know how many credits does your kid take per semester? and etc. The rating scale will be from 1 “I don’t know” 3 “I’m not sure” and 5 “I surely know”. Some more questions about relationship including love, respect, beliefs to parents or children are given to see how close the relationships are like “Do you love your parents?” “Do you share everything for your parents”, “Do you believe in their advice?” or “Do you believe in your kid’s decisions?” … And how do they think about dinner and relationship of parents and children.

Measuring this study by self-report questionnaires also faces with many challenges. The most obvious pitfall is social desirability bias. It is not easy for all attendants to reveal what they are really thinking or feeling to theirs for fear of looking bad. Or some do not seriously answer questions because of lacking of time. Thus the outcome might be not perfectly accurate.

I hypothesize that eating dinner at home regularly boosts closer relationship between parents and children from these above surveys. This will positively prove the benefits of having dinner at home on better family relationship. This research maybe helps to change a habit of eating out of many American families in busy life if they pay lot attention to their kids or their parents and these relationships.