Article 1

The article Does Daycare Breed Bullies? discusses the reliability of the Early Child
Care study results and the limitations of the investigation process. The claim of
young children who spend more time in daycare are significantly more likely to be
aggressive bullies as they get older is controversial.
The Early Child Care study results do not show that daycare is the reason of bullying
behavior, but only show there is possibly a link between these two. In fact, there are
many other confounding variables that could affect the results of the study. For
example, the amounts of time children spend watching television and playing video
games. Children who are put in daycare could have spent different amounts of time on
watching television and playing video games. The aggressive behavior of children
may be resulted from the violent scenes that are exposed to the children through
television or video games, rather than their daycare experiences. Bullying behavior
can also be learnt from peers or seniors. Children may follow their peers or seniors
who bully others at school and so develop into their own aggressive behaviors. Thus,
the results of the study may overestimate the adverse effects of daycare on childrens
development. Evidence shows that the quality of alternative care (including kinship
care, foster care, other forms of family-based or family-like care) is critical to child
well-being.1
In order to attain more conclusive results, a follow-up study is needed. In designing
the studying process, more factors should be considered. Within the population that is
under Early Child Care study, further investigation about the daily activities done by
children and the stress level of mothers and how this affects their childrens behavior.
The confounding variables that could affect the study results should be considered. To
prove the cause and effect relation between daycare and aggressive behavior, the
study should include a control test so as to ensure the study is a fair test. Therefore, to
modify the study, children of similar backgrounds should be used as the population
size for investigation. In this case, the confounding variables can be minimized.
Regardless the result of Early Child Care study, I think it is better for a parent to stay
at home. Although children can learn to get along with other children in the daycare
center, they may lack love and caring from their parents. Insufficient parental care and

love during childhood could lead to misbehavior of children.

Statistics can help us understand our daily lives such things as eating, dressing and
employment. It provides information for understanding the situation in our society.2
Concerning the Early Child Care study, I think it was not a worthwhile effort in terms
of the time and expense it required because it was not practical. Even though it
suggests the possible link between daycare and bullying, many working mothers will
still choose daycare because they have no other choice. Moreover, the result is not
useful in giving guidance to policy makers to improve child care. As the result does
not bring practical use to both individuals and society, I think it is not worthwhile to
carry out this study.
It is admitted that researchers put a lot of efforts in studying an issue. However, the
usefulness of results expected to gain should be carefully considered before starting a
study. In most of the cases, especially in some observational study, only the possibility
of relations between two variables can be known. There is no evidence to prove the
cause and effect relations between them. However, after such study is published, the
media may misinterpret the results in their news reports unintentionally or
intentionally in order to attract more readers. They tend to use some sensational
headlines which could mislead the readers. When the readers look at the news
coverage, they probably will not care too much about the nature of the study but only
the seeming results reported by the media. This misleading could affect the future
behavior of the readers. For example, if readers believe the claim of daycare breeds
bullies, which is in fact not the actual result attained by Early Child Care study, they
may choose not to use daycare in the future. Therefore, I think when we look at news
coverage about statistical reports, we should analyze carefully whether it is right or
wrongly reported and should not blindly believe in any statistical result.

Reference
1. Unicef. (2011). Retrieved from
http://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_58004.html

2. Statistics and You, Census and Statistics Department, Retrieved

from
http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/statistical_literacy/educational_materi
als/statistics_and_you/index.jsp