Critique of test and tools used in the attached article - Essay Example

The focus of this study was on African American adolescent mothers from low-income families, which contributes to the obvious stress that emerges from the addition of another ‘mouth to feed.’ The personal responsibility and work opportunity reconciliation (PRWORA) 0f 1996 requires that adolescent mothers live with their guardians or parents in order to receive or qualify for public funds assistance. This is bound to create conflicts in the family between the mother, the new grandmother and great grandmother who could happen to be taking care of their own children.

These conflicts and other factors that occur in such multi-generational settings are bound to have significant repercussions on the development of children. This paper seeks to offer a critique of the tests and tools that were used to conduct the research study. The relationships between these individuals were examined using longitudinal multi methods and multi-informant data collection methods. These modes of inquiry take into account the dynamic nature of people’s lives by taking a critical and dynamic thinking approaches.

These methods blend insights from social sciences and merge qualitative and quantitative methodologies. They combine micro and macro views of society that are garnered from comparing temporal data that is generated over time. These enable researchers to make objective judgments of observations that they make. Data collection methods included standardized questionnaires and videotaped observational procedures (Sellers, 2011). This method of data collection on the part of the mothers involved in the study was ideal because it enabled the candidates to respond without any external confounds influencing their answers and responds.

The use of laptop computers to administer the questionnaires was a good measure to ensure privacy and increase the confidence of the respondents. The downside of this method of data collection is that there was no way of controlling for bias in the respondents’ answers. Self-report questionnaires were used over time alongside observational procedures conducted at baseline (Sellers, 2011). Measures applied included Network of relationships inventory (NRI) that is a 33-item likert scale that examines personal relationships among children, adolescents and adults.

The advantage of this measure is that it can be self-administered thus, minimizing the scale of resources required to apply and implement. Scale of Intergenerational Relationship Quality (SIRG) was a measure that was used to evaluate the mother-grandmother relationship at a baseline (Sellers, 2011). Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was also used as maternal depression symptoms assessment tool. The BDI is a 21-item scale that is widely used and well validated among adolescents and adults. The BDI facilitates the monitoring of changes in depression by providing an objective measure of ascertaining effectiveness and improvement (Sellers, 2011).

BDI is faced with the limitations of being exaggerated or minimized by respondents, and they are also prone to external confounds like social expectations. Parental-Child Early Relational Assessment (PCERA; Clark, 1985) was applied as a measure in this study, and the version used exhibited significant psychometric properties. Data