The Divorce of the Parents and the Social Life of the Children - Research Proposal Example

In this research study the researcher will try to investigate and explore the relationship between the divorce between the parents and the social life and behavior of the children. The research study will be based on the attachment theory and the social learning theory. It is important to established at this point that there is direct impact of the family life and social setup on the personality and behavior of the individual. In order to investigate the cause and effect relationship between important variable the researcher will adopt the quantitative research method and will collect data and information with the help of different target respondents. Apart from this, the researcher will be considerate about the ethical considerations related to the research project. Table of Contents Abstract 1 Chapter 1 3 Problem Statement, Theoretical Framework, and Research Questions: 3 Problem Statement: 3 Theoretical Framework: 4 Research Questions: 6 Chapter 2 7 Outline of the Literature Review: 7 Problem Statement: 7 Theoretical Framework 7 Research Question 8 Variables 8 Predictions and Implications of Research 8 Chapter 3 10 Research Methodology: 10 Chapter 4 17 Analysis and Justification of Methodology: 17 Chapter 1 Problem Statement, Theoretical Framework, and Research Questions: For this course, the topic of marital and partner harmony’s relationship with positive outcomes for children will be explored. This topic will be viewed across various populations such as homosexuals, ethnic minorities, and parents with disabilities. This will be the focus of research because it is the most relevant to the research interest for the dissertation. In the dissertation, the school-to-prison pipeline will be investigated, as well as, the early classification or labeling of children (e.g., honors, gifted, special education, etc.) in elementary schools. It is assumed that this classification will impact the children’s future outcomes. The research project for this course will support an evaluation of how parental relationships and labels at home (e.g., homosexual, heterosexual, handicapped, black, white, etc.) impact social outcomes for children in the school setting. There is an incredible dynamic that exists between how children are socialized at home and the way it translates to others outside of the home. Perception can dictate whether the outcome will be positive or negative. Problem Statement: Children who grow up in an intact, two-parent family with both parents present do better on a wide range of outcomes than children who grow up in a single-parent family. Single parenthood is not the sole predictor of childhood maladjustment, but it is an individual contributor to school dropout rates, teenage pregnancy and juvenile delinquency. In an effort to reduce negative outcomes, research is needed to explore the impact of harmonious parental relationships on positive outcomes for children. If this problem is not extensively studied and responded to, society runs the risk of elevating negative teenage statistics as they relate to school, pregnancy and crime. Theoretical Framework: This research problem will be viewed through the theoretical lenses of attachment theory and social learning theory. Attachment theory suggests that success or failure to form strong attachments with family, peers, and other significant individuals in childhood will directly impact outcomes in an individual’s adult life. Akers & Sellers (2009) believe that repeated failures to form positive attachments with role models in a child’s life might isolate him or her from social interaction, result in a lack of social skills and low self-esteem, and increase resentfulness and an increased need to fit in and prove themselves. When analyzing the research problem using this model, the concepts that will be measured include maternal deprivation, delinquency and aggression levels. The second framework, social learning theory, suggests that the “principle part of the learning of any behavior occurs within intimate personal groups” (Akers & Sellers, 2009, p. 86). The home is the initial training ground and gives signals of what is considered ‘normal and acceptable’ behavior. This research theory will be applied to the aforementioned research question to evaluate the impact of divorce on the long-term adjustment of children. When analyzing Social Learning Theory, there will be a focus on the concepts of modeling and reciprocal determinism. If there are harmful outcomes of divorce, then there may be predictors of aggression in the home. Collected data could be used to determine whether this is a learned behavior and if this lesson will be passed on to children within the home. Marital expectations, marriage, adolescent parenting, grandmother, multigenerational household will be measured. In addition, inter-parental conflict, adolescent dating and appraisals will be evaluated. Synthesis of Theoretical Framework It is important to understand the links between all related and concerned theories and variables. It is a natural process that the behavior of any person is the reflection of different situations and circumstances faced by that particular person. The family life has most strong and prominent affect on the social behavior and personality of the individual. The individuals who have witnessed any kind of negative relationship or divorce among their parents, tend to have low self confidence, self esteem, and courage. It is important to explore and understand the connection between the social behavior and attitude of the individuals and the status of the family life they have gone through. This is the combination of the attachment theory and the social learning theory. In order to investigate this concept further, it is important to first conduct extensive literature review. This will in turn allow to identify more relevant variables. As social behavior is a broad term and consists of different factors and elements. It is important to differentiate between different components of the social behavior and attitude and the influence of the peaceful family life on this individual components of the social behavior and attitude. This will be beneficial for the social theorists and other concerned persons while coming up with appropriate strategies and decisions. Research Questions: Quantitative Research Question The quantitative research question for this project is, “What are the conditions under which divorce is either harmful or benign with respect to children's long-term adjustment?” Quantitative research questions inquire about the relationship among variables that the investigator seeks to know (Creswell, 2009, p. 132). The previous quantitative research question fits this requirement because it explores the relationship between divorce and the adjustment of children. This will in turn facilitate the explorative or explanatory research study. Chapter 2 Outline of the Literature Review: Problem Statement: This literature review will examine the relationship between marital or partner harmony and the long-term development of children exposed to existent factors. Sun & Li (2007) suggest that children who grow up in an intact, two-parent family with both parents present do better on a wide range of outcomes than children who grow up in a single-parent family. Single parenthood is not the sole predictor of childhood maladjustment, but it is an individual contributor to school dropout rates, teenage pregnancy and juvenile delinquency. In an effort to reduce negative outcomes, research is needed to explore the impact of harmonious parental relationships on positive outcomes for children. If this problem is not extensively studied and responded to, society runs the risk of elevating negative teenage statistics as they relate to school, pregnancy and crime. Theoretical Framework This research problem will be viewed through the theoretical lens of attachment theory. Attachment theory suggests that success or failure to form strong attachments with family, peers, and other significant individuals in childhood will directly impact outcomes in an individual’s adult life (Akers & Sellers, 2009). Research Question The quantitative research question for this project is, “What are the conditions under which divorce is either harmful or benign with respect to children's long-term adjustment?” Quantitative research questions inquire about the relationship among variables that the investigator seeks to know (Creswell, 2009, p. 132). The previous quantitative research question fits this requirement because it explores the relationship between divorce and the adjustment of children. Variables The dependent variable or the outcome that will be evaluated is the adjustment of children. This adjustment can be harmful or benign, but the researcher and readers need to know the impact that parental relationships have on the long-term adjustment of children in the home. The independent variable or the item that can be measured or generalized are the conditions or factors leading to divorce. This researcher seeks to know which situations warrant divorce and create different outcomes (positive and negative) for the impacted children. For example, if the marriage was physically abusive, then it may be beneficial for the abusive parent to be removed from the home by way of divorce or separation. Predictions and Implications of Research Attachment theory as a theoretical framework will show how the dependent variable (childhood adjustment) depends on the independent variable (conditions leading to divorce). Akers & Sellers (2009) believe that repeated failures to form positive attachments with role models in a child’s life might isolate him or her from social interaction, result in a lack of social skills and low self-esteem, and increase resentfulness and an increased need to fit in and prove themselves. This issue is important because in recent times there have been an onset of alternatives to male/female two-parent homes emerging. To clarify, there are same-sex households, polygamist households and other non-traditional settings that children are being raised in. As mentioned before, existing research tells us that children raised in positive, in-tact, two-parent homes thrive. What is not fully known is the level of attachment among parents and children and the adjustment of those children in alternative settings, like polygamist compounds. This research project seeks to find out the effect of divorce or separation on the overall adjustment or maladjustment of these children. Chapter 3 Research Methodology: It is important for the researcher to carefully devise and plan the whole research process and come up with the research design. The research design facilitates the researcher in the whole research process and serves the purpose of the road map (Sekeran, 2006). Same is true in this case. There are a large number of factors that decide how severely parental separation or divorce affects a child’s adaptability or long-term adjustment to life (Barber & Eccles, 1992). It has been documented that the age of the child at the time of divorce and gender effects whether the child was raised by the parent of the same sex as the child or not, whether the child was involved in a custody litigation or not and finally, the use of therapy or intervention (Bricklin, 1995). All are factors that play influential roles in how the child adjusts to life in the long run. According to Hetherington (1979), difficulties in adjustment typically manifest itself in forms of the child later being involved in troubled relationships with their partners or spouses, substance abuse etc. The purpose or aim behind the research study is to identify, investigate, and explain the impact of the marital and partner harmony on the life of the children. In this regard the researcher has tried to investigate and explore the influence of the divorce between parents on the social life and behavior of the children. Hence, it can be said that the research project will have the ‘descripto-explanatory’ (Saunders, Thornhill, & Lewis, 2009, p.140), research purpose. The expression ‘descripto-explanatory’ has been generated by the amalgamation of descriptive and explanatory. As a result, this research purpose is a mixture of both descriptive research and explanatory research. The purpose of the descriptive research is explaining and defining the overall situation which is being investigated or studied in order to come up with the actual picture of the whole situation (Aanstoos, 1983). In reference to this research study, the researcher will try to explain the relationship between the peaceful relationship among parents and the social behavior of the children, with the help of the descriptive research. On the other hand, the explanatory or explorative research is used by the research in order to explore and investigate the causal relationship between the different related variables (Patton, 2002). In reference to this research study, the researcher will use the explanatory research in order to investigate the relationship between the important variables related to the research study. This study will discuss an explanatory research design that will attempt to evaluate the validity of these claims. Explanatory research is a continuation of descriptive research. The researcher goes beyond merely describing the characteristics, to analyzing and explaining why or how the phenomenon being studied is happening (Creswell, 2009). Thus, analytical research aims to understand phenomena by discovering and measuring causal relations among them. This learner will design research that carries out an impact evaluation of the conditions created by: a) Age b) Gender effects c) Custody litigation d) Therapy/intervention This study will evaluate the impact of the aforementioned variables on the child’s long term adjustments measured by: i) Relationship troubles/divorce of child in later life ii) Substance abuse problems The design of the study is detailed below: The population of interest is people, who as children witnessed divorces of their parents. Since the study is concerned with how these individuals adjust to life after growing up, the goal is to evaluate the quality of life of adults whose parents were divorced. So, a random sample of people, whose parents went through divorces, was collected. The researcher used the purposive sampling method in order to collect the responses from those individuals who witnessed the divorces of their parents. The purposive sampling allows the researcher to select the sample according to the requirements and needs of the research study. As, this research study needs the responses from the individuals who have witnessed special social circumstances on their life, for this reason the researcher has gone for the purposive sampling in order to select the target respondents. Table 1 identifies these individuals by four separate groups as detailed below: Table 1 Relationship Status Troubled/Divorced Happy substance abuser Group I Group II Not substance abuser Group III Group IV Now, the second step is to gather information about: i) What was the age of the person when parents were divorced? ii) Was the person raised by the father or the mother? iii) Was a ‘custody litigation’ involved in the proceedings? iv) Was the child given therapeutic care or intervention to deal with possible trauma from the parents’ divorce? The critical point to note here is that since it is the impact of these conditions that is being evaluated, factors one through four represent the ‘treatments’. Each of the four groups mentioned in Table 1 should be subjected to an evaluation of impact for each one of these treatments. Therefore, in order to answer the quantitative question, this learner designed research that involves evaluations of four separate treatments on each of four separate groups. For each treatment, the study shall evaluate whether the mean was different. For instance, consider the variable ‘age’. The way the impact of this variable will be evaluated is, this research will look at differences in mean age among groups I to IV. Similarly for each of the other three treatments, the mean scores of the variables differ across the groups will be evaluated. If significant differences are found, then this will imply that the variable, for which such a difference was found, indeed has an influence on the impact of parent’s divorce on the child’s adjustment. The research design here is essentially a “Post-test only Control Group” type for each separate treatment. Defining the age treatment as “treatment T>0 if age was greater or equal to 3 years” the diagram for this test can be shown as follows: Figure 1: Post-test control only research design Similarly, the aforementioned research design can test for the other groups as well. This design does allow for establishing causation. This is because it tests for differences in impact of the causes by separating the sample into groups who differ in accordance with the effect. In order to find the answers to the research questions, the researcher has adopted the scientific research approach. The scientific research approach itself is derived from the deduction analysis. At the same time the scientific research approach is based on the belief that the things which can be measured can also be explained and defined (Maylor and Blackmon, 2005). There are certain factors which are compulsory for the scientific research, these are observations, measurement, and facts. The analysis and final results are directly dependent on these factors. In reference to this research study related to the social behavior of the children who have witnessed the divorce among their parents, the aim of the scientific research is to objectively analyze or investigate the relevant and useful information which will be beneficial for the several socialists and social behavior analysts in the future studies and decisions. One of the important concerns while conducting the research project is to make sure that the research study is reliable and valid. For this purpose it is important to ensure that the researcher is objective during the process of whole research project. In this regard, scientific research approach can be beneficial as it make sure that the researcher is completely disconnected from the topic being investigated and remains unbiased during the process of data collection and analysis (Crabtree, 1992). Apart from this, the scientific research approach can be directly compared or related with the positivism. Positivism is one of the research philosophies which guide the researcher through the whole research process. According to this research philosophy, it is important for the researcher to perform all activities and tasks related to the data collection and data analysis while remaining calm and composed. In addition to this, positivism research philosophy includes the development of the research objective, which is then followed by the description of the overall situation which is being investigated, this leads to the elaboration and definition of the related theories and concepts related to the research topic, these theories are developed by explaining the phenomenon, and in the last step these elaborated theories are applied in order to get the final positive results (Jankowicz, 2005, p. 111). In reference to this research project, the researcher will first gather or collect data and information from different reliable and credible sources with the help of the different research tools and techniques. The sources of data will be both, primary and secondary. In the next phase the research will use this data along with the different related and defined theories in order to investigate the relationship between the harmony among the parents and the social behaviour of the children. The researcher will be adopting quantitative research strategy in order to investigate the answers to the research questions. This research strategy will be facilitated by the survey research method in order to collect the responses to the relevant questions. This in turn will allow the researcher to gather all relevant and required information from the target respondents. The survey research method is beneficial for the research studies which are based on the explanatory research purpose. It is also directly related with the research approach of deduction, research philosophy of positivism, and scientific research approach. The survey research method is beneficial for the researcher in the process of identification of different reasons behind the particular relationship between important variables which are being investigated in the research study and generation of different relationship models. The researcher will adopt the mix method research in order to make sure that the research results are comprehensive and thorough investigation of the matter in hand has been done. In this regard, the researcher will initially come up with the conceptual or theoretical framework with the help of the extensive literature review and secondary research. This in turn will facilitate the researcher in the process of identifying important variables and possible relationships between them. In the next phase, i.e. after the identification of the relevant variables and establishment of the theoretical framework, the researcher will collect the information through primary research in order to check and investigate the actual relationship between the identified variables. It is important for the researcher to keep in consideration the different ethical issues and considerations related to the complete research process i.e. data collection and analysis. For this purpose, it is essential that the research is conducted according to the norms and ethical standards of the society. In reference to this research project the researcher will take all required measures in order to protect the private information of the target respondents and will not share information and data with any third party. Also, the data collected will only be used for the research purpose. Apart from this, the researcher will have to be extra careful and cautious during the whole process of research because of the sensitive nature of the research topic and data collected. Chapter 4 Analysis and Justification of Methodology: The quantitative research method is more feasible for this research study. There are several reasons for selecting the quantitative research method. For instance, the topic of the research study is highly sensitive and personal and it will be difficult for the researcher to collect huge amount of qualitative data in order to conduct qualitative data. It will be easier to collect information and data for the quantitative method. Both qualitative and quantitative method will use the method of purposive sampling in order to select the target respondents. However, it will become easy for the target respondents to provide answers to sensitive and personal questions through survey then by face to face interviews or focus group. Moreover, it will be convenient for the researcher to perform the quantitative analysis and explore the relationship between the harmony among the parents and the social behavior and personality of the children. On this other hand, it would have been difficult with the help of the qualitative research study to come up with clear and well defined relationships between important variables and thus in turn it will become difficult to investigate the relationship between the peaceful companionship among the parents and the social practices and behavior of the children. Hence, the quantitative research method will be beneficial for this type of research study in the domain of the social sciences. The explanatory research study is mostly facilitated by the quantitative research method and techniques as in this way it is easy to investigate and explore the relationship between the important variables being investigated. References Aanstoos, C. 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