FOR: Kim Woods - Research Paper

Purpose of the Studies

The main purpose of the Waller and Elizabeth study was to examine how divorce is a risk to the parents who are not married and how it influences their decision on getting married. The main purpose of the Moats and Miami University study was to find out the perception of college students on divorce and marriage in today’s society depending on their inexperience or experience with the divorce of parents.

Findings

In the Waller and Elizabeth article, the data that they used was mainly secondary data that was drawn from Fragile Family Study. This is a study that follows cohort for new births of children in 20 cities in the United States. They used a sample of 4,898 births, 3,712 occurring for parents who were not married and 1,184 occurring to parents who were married. The data that were weighted represented parent’s births that were for non-marital people having a population of over 200,000 (Becker, 1991). In Moats article, the data that was used as a primary data, which was collected from the study, used respondents who were the college students by the use of a questionnaire.

In the Waller and Elizabeth article, they used several sensitivity analysis to check for significance. They applied logistic regression analysis to determine the personal and relationship characteristics that were in relation to the dissolution of the marriage of the parents who were married at the birth of the child. They used the index of regression to estimate the probability of marriage. In the Moats and Miami University study, the test of significance that was applied was the univariate analysis of variance where significance was tested based on the p-value of the analysis result.

The findings of Waller and Elizabeth were as follows: the adult cohorts that were recent grew up when the society of America was experiencing common divorce, divorce of parents have been experienced by many men and women and there was indirect exposure to divorce, there was a negative correlation between divorce and propensities of marriage in the time series data of U.S. There was no significant finding for the study of Moats and Miami University but there were a relationship divorce and gender and attitude towards marriage.

The research question for Waller and Elizabeth was that the high rate of divorce in the population leads to fear of divorce among the parents of young children and are not married and reducing their probability of getting married. Their hypothesis was supported empirically by their results. The research question for Moats and Miami University was that adults who are young and come from families that are divorced have views that are more negative towards marriage and views that are more positive towards divorce than adults who are young and come from families that are married. Their hypothesis was not supported by the results of their study. Finally, the validity of Wall and Elizabeth study was not credible. The study relied on secondary data making validity test difficult and with Moats, the study instrument that was questionnaires addressed the variables of the study and results represented what the study was about.

Reference

Becker, Gary S. 1991. A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.