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Orathinkal Article 201120 Spring 2011 COUN 503-D09 LUO Brandon Douglas May 13, 2011

Dr. Dan Donaldson

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Critique of Title When critiquing a title is it important to understand the audience you are trying to reach. The title Forgiveness: A perception and motivation study among married adults clearly speaks volumes to married couples. The title could have been more specific by giving a race, age bracket, or religious background because we all come from different backgrounds. This author decided not to describe the results in his title nor did he use a title that required a yes or no answer. Stating that its a study proves that there is a process to go through that will not warrant a yes or no answer. Critique of Abstract The purpose of study was clearly implied throughout the abstract, especially in the first sentence by stating This cross-sectional study investigated the perception and motivation of forgiveness among 785 heterosexually married adults from the Flanders region in Belgium (site source). The abstract mentions highlights of methodology evident in saying In the second phase of the study, a t-test showed evidence of a signicant difference between the positive perception of forgiveness of the rst-married and remarried adults (O r a t h i n k a l , V a n s t e e n w e g e n , & B u r g g r a e v e , 2 0 0 8 ).

Critique of literature review In the beginning of the text the researcher begins to identify the problem area, which is forgiveness, specifically with married couples. As a part the introductions its important to stated this to A: get your readers attention and B: to explain the reason why they chose to write about this topic. The researcher provided adequate definitions by

Running Head: Orathinkal stating In this study, those who still remain in their rst marriage were classied as rst-married, and those who are divorced or separated and remarried or living with a partner, as remarried( O r a t h i n k a l , V a n s t e e n w e g e n , & B u r g g r a e v e , 2 0 0 8 ). These key terms gave a clearer understanding of the participants in the study. Throughout the literature the researcher did avoid using larger number of sources for one single point. The Researcher mostly used one or two sources to prove a point. Overall the literature was review of the introduction was thorough and provided sources for the cited inserts. Thee were no overuse of direct quotations and the researcher was able to distinguish between opinion and research findings sufficiently. Critique of Research Questions The research was wondering The first goal was to understand the nature of forgiveness, that is, to find out how well the concepts of forgiveness are understood by the respondents, what are the motivations behind forgiveness, and to discover the ability of the respondents to distinguish between forgiveness and reconciliation( O r a t h i n k a l , V a n s t e e n w e g e n , & B u r g g r a e v e , 2 0 0 8 ). This shows what the researcher was thinking about. The hypothesis was clearly stated in the research questions as well. Research hypothesis clearly stated The goal was to examine the possibility of an empirical link between perception of forgiveness and actual forgiveness (O r a t h i n k a l , V a n s t e e n w e g e n , & B u r g g r a e v e , 2 0 0 8 ).

Critique of Methodology:

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Population & sampling We employed a snowball sampling technique (snowball sampling consists of identifying respondents who then refer researchers to other respondents) and sought the help of regular college students for data collection. (O r a t h i n k a l , V a n s t e e n w e g e n , & B u r g g r a e v e , 2 0 0 8 ) When critiquing population and sampling, one must pick the target group as stated previously. This is not a random study and the researcher clearly states its imitations. There were no relevant demographics of the study although the research stated the research was done in the Flanders region in Belgium. To generalize a conclusion from this sample group could be an argument many different ways. This study is accurate to generalize due to the sample size.

Critique of procedures In this particular study they were broken down into two groups. One group was called first-married and the second group was remarried. The participants were separated by their marriage situation and selected at random by college students. Treatments were described in sufficient detail evident by the rst part of this study employed a descriptive analysis in examining the conceptual clarity and motivation of forgiveness. In the second part, t-test was used to compare the group means. Pearsons Product Moment Correlation examined the extent of the relationship between the perception of forgiveness and actual Forgiveness. Overall the experiment was properly conduced evident by the favorable outcomes of he study and the treatments being politically acceptable.

Running Head: Orathinkal Critique of instrumentation The actual items and questions were provided in envelopes and given t the participants. Enright and the Human Development Study Group at the University of Wisconsin- Madison called the instrument used the Enright Forgiveness Inventory. It is a 60-item self-report measure of interpersonal forgiveness with items equally divided among six subscales: Positive and Negative Affect, Positive and Negative Behavior, and Positive and Negative Cognition. Each item was scored on a 1 to 6 Likert- type scale ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree, with scores ranging from 60 to 360 (source). The Forgiveness Motivation and Perception Checklist (FMPC). The FMPC measured Respondents Perception and Motivation of forgiveness. It is a researchergenerated 25-item questionnaire, each on a 1 to 5 Likert-type scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree, with scores ranging from 25 to 125. A high score represents a higher level of positive attitude and clearer perception regarding forgiveness. The methods used to collect data were evident by expressing As part of their study requirement students were asked to take one envelope containing two questionnaires each and get it duly lled in by a rst-married or remarried couple of their choice (O r a t h i n k a l , V a n s t e e n w e g e n , & B u r g g r a e v e , 2 0 0 8 ). Critique of result

When the percentages were reported the researcher didnt show any underlying number of cases. But by the table example your able to see how the percentages came about so they arent misleading. The results seem to be cohesive evident by the paragraphs before the table and after. The paragraphs contain statistics along with

Running Head: Orathinkal percentages that explain in detail the findings. In the table the highlights are discussed in the narrative evident by stating As shown on Table 4, both Positive (PPF) (p < 0.001, r = 0.08) and Negative Perception Scale (p < 0.001, r = 0.12) signicantly correlated with total forgiveness (EFI-TOT). However, the coefficient of determination (r2) is less than 1% (0.06%) for the Positive Perception and about 1% for the Negative Perception, indicating a very small level of relation. (O r a t h i n k a l , V a n s t e e n w e g e n , & B u r g g r a e v e , 2 0 0 8 ). Critique of discussion During the discussion the researcher chose to briefly summarize the purpose and results of the study by saying he rst part of this study basically gathered information on the participants perception of forgiveness. Certain popular notions or beliefs on forgiveness were veried. Only about 40% of the respondents were able to distinguish between forgiveness and reconciliation, and for about 60% forgiveness and reconciliation were identical. More than 90% of the respondents agree that forgiveness is part of marital life ( O r a t h i n k a l , V a n s t e e n w e g e n , & B u r g g r a e v e , 2 0 0 8 ) . The research also showed there were methodological limitations: There are a number of limitations to this study. First, the motivation and the perception scale is a researcher-developed scale and therefore its psychometric properties need to be further established before further use. The sampling technique employed in the current study could caution the interpretation of the results, because the married couples with whom the university students have connections might be systematically different from married couples in general ( O r a t h i n k a l , V a n s t e e n w e g e n , & B u r g g r a e v e , 2008).

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Critique of entire article The researcher definitely picked a topic of clear importance. The divorce rate is climbing at an alarming rate and we, as Christians have to set the high standard for not letting our marriages end in divorce. Forgiveness is a major of marriage and the study showed that most people forgive because its a part of marital life. How many of those people actually forgive is uncertain. This research could be likely helpful in decision making due to the importance of forgiving someone to move on. Some methodological flaws could be demographic variables, age, education, number of children in a family etc.

A follow up study for this article could include the severity of culture and demographics of different ethnic groups. In America your transgression may not be forgiven easily then in another country. In another country the results may be different as forgiveness may be frowned upon and shown as a weakness. So the study could have different results if given in a different country other than Belgium.

Running Head: Orathinkal References ORATHINKAL, J., VANSTEENWEGEN, A., & BURGGRAEVE, R. (2008). Forgiveness: a perception and motivation study among married adults. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 49(2), p155160.