Single mothers or women in single parenthood (WISP)? A report and reflection on the development of a brief marital metaphor questionnaire (MMQ-10)

Development and Validation of the Marital Metaphor Questionnaire (MMQ‐10) for Urban Chinese Women

“…For example, the risk theme revealed in the metaphor “Marriage is gambling” (MMQ5) collected from a survey (Zhou, ) echoes the risk theme in the metaphor “Marriage is buying stocks” discovered by analyzing Chinese marriage‐related media discourse in other research (Rosenblatt & Li, ). The construct validity was further confirmed by the exploratory factor analysis in our previous study (Chiu & Zhou, ), the confirmatory factor analysis with a more diverse sampling in this study, and the significant correlations between the MMQ‐10 subscales and those of the MMSI (Shen, ).…”

“…(b) We want to discuss the clinical implication of the MMQ‐10 in premarital or marital counseling. In our previous study (Chiu & Zhou, ), the MMQ‐10 had clear factor loading and good reliability. However, the sample size in that study was limited and the participants only involved women in single parenthood.…”

“…M = mean of variable; SD = standard deviation; h 2 = communalities. Loadings higher than .45 are highlighted in bold (See Chiu & Zhou, ).…”

“…In our first study using the MMQ, we administrated the 23 marital metaphor items to a homogenous group of 123 low‐income women of divorced marital status, who had at least one child (averaged household income: HK $ 6429.9/per month; Age: M = 45.55 SD = 8.24) (Chiu & Zhou, ). The overall internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha) was .92.…”

“…Although the EFA results reveal a neat three‐factor structure (Chiu & Zhou, ), further empirical work is needed to address two aspects. First, construct validity of the three‐factor structure and the concurrent validity of the MMQ‐10 in a more heterogeneous and larger sample are yet to be tested.…”