Running head: CRITIQUE OF THE EVALUATION OF AN ADOPTIVE PARENTING PROGRAMME 1

Critique of a Real-World Evaluation of an Adoptive Parenting Programme by Alan Rushton and Elizabeth Monck

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Abstract This paper makes an attempt to give a reasonable critique of a peer-reviewed journal article. The article chosen for this purpose is the research dedicated to solving the problems which result from the process of adoption, to be more precise to evaluation of an adoptive parenting programme. evaluation is given. Keywords: critique, evaluation of an adoptive parenting programme, After criticizing each structural unit of the article, the overall

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Critique of a Real-World Evaluation of an Adoptive Parenting Programme by Alan Rushton and Elizabeth Monck The article by Alan Rushton and Elizabeth Monck (Rushton & Monck, 2010) focuses on evaluation of a new approach to managing problems connected with adoption of children and placing them to new homes. The authors call this approach adoptive parenting programme. Proceeding from a wide range of studies which give conclusive evidence that the extent of the childs psycho-social problems is related to instability of the placement, the researchers made a presumption that the awareness of possible problems might help to avoid destabilization of the environment. For this purpose they tried to apply the parenting programme which was used to help parents to manage their problematic children to adopters and tackling problems of adopted children. The given article is the evaluation of that trial. Although on the whole the review of literature is rather full and correctly cited, there are some considerable drawbacks. First of all, the information given is not enough to understand what the authors wanted to emphasize on. For example, the two contrasting parenting programmes are mentioned. However, the difference between these two programmes is not explained, while it is crucial for the readers understanding of the research, because one programme is supposed to be more efficient. Hence, it can be said that the logic of the literature review is broken, which results in difficulties with understanding the research questions and linking it to the literature reviewed. If we compare this article with an article on the similar topic (Brand & Brinich, 1999), we will see that the latter has a more detailed literature review, which takes into account and explains all the possible approaches to the problem, even those which contradict the position of the researchers. Even more problems can be found when concerning the methodological section of the article. Even though the detailed description of the participants of the study and the way how they were chosen is given, there is some criticism about the method itself. Firstly, the

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procedures were described in quite an unclear way, so that it will be hard to repeat the same study. Secondly, the authorities were chosen not randomly, but due to the number of children adopted during the past 3 years. Such an approach distorts the results, because it contradicts the principles of validity and reliability of the data, limiting the generalizability. This sample is not representative to the parent population, unlike the sample made for the research of behavior problems of adopted children in Minnesota (Gunnar et al., 2007), where children were chosen randomly from the governmental record, and then their parents were asked to fill in questionnaires and post them back. Moreover, the sample size doesnt contribute to solving this problem. All in all, the number of families, who took part in the trial, was 37, which means that the control and intervention groups were no larger than 19 families. If we looked from the positivist outlook on the social sciences, we would have to reject this research at all, for having too little statistical power for testing the hypothesis. It is interesting, that one of the reasons why so few families agreed to take part in the research was that the research team couldnt address the families directly, but only through the social workers, because of the laws of confidentiality. The social workers, on their part, were too preoccupied by their routine work together with the lack of motivation to join the research. However, we cant affirm that this research doesnt have any scientific interest at all. Quite the contrary this study may be really helpful, if its limitations are taken into account, and personal position is rejected. The strong side of the study, for example, seems to be the instrument used to describe the situation in families. It consists of 7 different questionnaires, which could be used for comparison and analysis of collected data. Parents were interviewed 3 times: before the programme, shortly after, and six months later. Although there is no criticism about the instrument, the frequency of the interviews could be doubted. The researches dont explain the decision to interview parents 3 times. Moreover, they dont

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explain how terms were chosen. If the first two time points before and shortly after the study can be logically understood, the third time point is not explained. All of the above-listed factors made impact on the results of the research. It turned out that there was no difference between the two groups, and that both programmes didnt help parents to manage the relations with the newly adopted child, in spite of the researchers reluctance to admit it. In addition, the authors rarely operate with numbers and variable values, apart from the p-values, and dont present information visually in tables and figures. Such a way of presenting information helps the reader to analyze the findings of the research and make his own conclusions when there are a lot of variables. A good example of a topicrelated article, where visual support was used properly is an article from the Pediatrics journal (Miller & Handrie, 2000) which illustrates the results of the research dedicated to the health of the adopted children from China. The discussion section of the criticized research is its strong side, because practically all the limitations are mentioned and taken into account. Moreover, the prospects of further studies are named. It is also discussed, whether the findings can and must be used by practitioners in the situation when there is no obvious evidence for both parenting programmes. To sum up, the evaluation of an adoptive parenting programme has a lot of weaknesses as a scientific research. Starting with the literature review, where the ideas are not logically corroborated, continuing with the methodological, where problems with the validity and representativeness appear, and finishing by the result section, which lacks visual support materials and numbers; the given study doesnt prove to be reliable. Nevertheless, the strong side of this research is its Discussion section, because all the drawbacks are taken into account and the ways to correct them are given. That is why I would use this research to design my own study, and the discussion section would help me to avoid many mistakes.

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References Brand, A. and Brinich, P. (1999). Behavior problems and mental health contacts in adopted, foster, and nonadopted children. J. Child Psychol. Psychiat., 40 (8), 1221-1229. Gunnar, M. et al. (2007). Behavior problems in postinstitutionalized internationally adopted children. Development and psychopathology, 19 (1), 129-148. Miller, L. and Hendrie, N. (2000). Health of children adopted from China. Pediatrics, 105 (6), 41-47. Rushton, A. and Monck, E. (2010). A real-world evaluation of an adoptive parenting programme: Reflections after conducting a randomized trial. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 15 (4), 543-554.