Family

Method of Data Collection

Methods of data collection include (a) self-reports of family members and (b) direct observation of families during actual interactions. The key feature of the self-report approach is that the participant is asked for his/her perceptions of family events. There are many advantages to report methods, including the strong face validity, convenience, and modest cost for administration and scoring. Also, given the possibility of a large sample base, normative data may be available to which individual protocols can be related. Further, there is greater access to ‘private’ family data which cannot be reasonably obtained by other procedures (e.g. the nature of sexual interactions, or [Page 408]members' unexpressed dissatisfaction). Most importantly, self-report procedures capture members' cognitions and attributions about relationships and events, data that are increasingly viewed as essential to the goals of understanding and predicting family processes and outcomes. Notwithstanding these benefits, self-report procedures are, in the end, an individual's own perception of self and other, perceptions that can be inaccurate, biased, and at times seriously distorted. Furthermore, the researcher must reconcile the inevitable inconsistencies that are found in reports from different family members. Finally, most self-report data provide little in the way of the fine-grained details of moment to moment, day-to-day interactions between family members, data that are of great importance to researchers interested in the analysis of actual family processes which are only available through observation.

In contrast, observational procedures inform us most directly about actual interchanges among family members. Under the best of circumstances, such procedures provide highly detailed information regarding streams of behaviour that characterize the family ‘in operation’. Specific coding systems can be applied to these interactions allowing for precise measurement of aspects of family processes and patterns of interaction. These results provide a critical foundation for an empirically based theory of family interaction with consequent links to the disorders of children and adults. Even so, direct observation strategies involving the use of complex coding procedures are costly and labour intensive, and require a significant commitment of time and resources in order to collect, collate, and analyse complex interaction data. Furthermore, there are methodological issues associated with these measures including subject reactivity to being observed and the meaningfulness of highly specific behavioural codes as indices of the larger dimensions and constructs of relevance to family experience.

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