Research for and on Families with Toddlers

[JackPeltz]

Hey Everyone,

I was really psyched by the responses to my earlier post, so I wanted to put it out there again.  I am a parent of a 1 and 4 year old as well as a fairly new member to the community. I am also a graduate student at the University of Rochester, working on my PhD in Psychology. My research focuses on how young families grow and change over time. I have just started recruiting for my dissertation research project where I will be studying families with a 2 or 3 year old children. As a father and as a researcher, I know just how challenging and rewarding that parenting toddlers can be.

In that light, I am hoping that some of you might be willing to take my survey (thereby helping me to understand how a wide range of families navigate this stage AND helping me complete my dissertation research). The details of the study are below as well as a link to the online survey. Please feel free to reply with any questions you have about the study, and thanks in advance for your interest in participating.

I greatly appreciate your time and support!

Jack Peltz

IF...

• You are living with a romantic partner
• You and your partner at both at least 18yo
• You think your partner might also be willing to complete an online survey
• You have a 2-3yo child that lives in your home at least half the week

I would appreciate it if you could take a few moments to complete this online survey.

The Family Dynamics Survey :

1. Is voluntary
2. Can be completed online
3. Is SHORT (takes 20-25 minutes)
4. Involves you and your partner both participating (at separate times)
5. Will offer you feedback on your relationship.
   • 5 empirically validated dimensions of relationship functioning
6. Includes optional follow up surveys
   • Brief surveys (10-15 min)
   • Occurring 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 months after the initial survey
   • Chance to win $100 for each follow up assessment completed!

Thank you for your time and support!

Jack Peltz, M.A.
Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology
University of Rochester

CLICK HERE IF INTERESTED: http://edu.surveygizmo.com/s3/526237/family-dynamics?source=mothering

[JackPeltz]

Some parents of twins have asked if they can participate, and they certainly can.  They just need to refer to one of the twins when the questions are about a specific child, but a lot of the questions refer to the family on the whole (so it should not be a problem).  Again, please feel free to forward the link to other parents who you think might qualify for the study.

[JackPeltz]

Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to thank everyone who has participated in the survey thus far. Your participation has been very helpful, and I am looking forward to sharing my findings when the study is complete.

We are still looking for participants, so please consider participating and forwarding the link to the online study to others you know who have 2 or 3 year old children.

Finally, please don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions or would like to know more about my research. And thanks again for your interest and participation in the survey! 

[JanineRivera]

I am very intrigued by this topic and took the survey.  I can see that you and your professor have put a lot of time and effort into creating it but I wanted to let you know that I think that the way some of the questions are worded do not leave room for true answers but rather what is the closest to the truth; which in some cases was not very close at all.  For example the words flashing and being asked to match; I do not believe that lovable can be defined in such terms .. so I was unable to truly take part in that section.  Also, putting a time frame on some of the questions, like in the last two weeks, left me clueless how to accurately answer the questions.  Just because my husband has not said "Everything is going to be okay" or the other phrases in the past 2 weeks does not mean he is not supportive it means that we have not had an upheaval or faced many challenges in that time period.  He does say those things to me but more importantly is willing to just listen and hear me.  Also the part that was asking if I sleep well or have little to no energy was difficult for me too because I am pregnant and so many of those statements apply currently but not always when I am not nearly 8 months pregnant with twins:)  

I don't mean this feedback to be negative; I just thought it might help you to look at the results in a more objective way.

[JackPeltz]

Thank you very much for the response!

I certainly don't take your feedback to be negative.  In fact, I appreciate your thoughtful comments and really appreciate that you took the time to do the survey.  In terms of the word associations, that is a task that we are still developing, but that we wanted to pilot for this study.  Your response suggests that we need to tweak it a little more.  In terms of the time frames, we have tried to keep them consistent (2 weeks to 1 month).  However, some of the question sets required us to use a specific time frame.  Finally, the survey is longitudinal, meaning that we will be following families over the course of the year.  The time frames of the follow-up surveys necessitated us keeping the questions around pretty specific periods.  The question you mention (support from partner) is a little hard to follow, I admit, and we will have to tweak that as well in the future.  I also appreciate your comment about being pregnant.  That will certainly affect your mood and behavior, but as much as we wanted to, we couldn't ask everything.  An ideal survey (from a researchers point of view) might take a few days to complete.  Definitely not ideal for parents!

I would really appreciate it if you could forward the survey link to others who might have 2 or 3 year old children.  Thanks again for your thoughtful participation.

Jack

[JackPeltz]

Hi again,

In response to Janine's feedback, we have actually added a question to address her concern.  We greatly appreciate the feedback and look forward to more members taking the survey.

JUST CLICK HERE: http://edu.surveygizmo.com/s3/526237/family-dynamics?source=mothering

[JackPeltz]

Hi everyone,
people have been asking how long we will be running the survey for. We are planning on trying to recruit participants into December, so, if you have not already participated, please consider taking the survey. Also, the more participants we get, the better representation we will have of families and the more representative the results will be. To that end, if you know someone with a 2 or 3 year old child, please forward the study link (in the above post) on to others you know. Thank you!

JUST CLICK HERE: http://edu.surveygizmo.com/s3/526237/family-dynamics?source=mothering

[sky_and_lavender]

Looking forward to taking the survey after my daughter turns 2 at the end of August!

[JackPeltz]

That's awesome!  Thank you for your interest in the survey.

I just found out that an author and blogger, Ann Douglas, has posted on her parenting blog about the survey, which I am very excited about.

Here's the link (she writes a lot of cool stuff on parenting):

http://www.having-a-baby.com/news/2011/8/20/study-participants-wanted-how-young-families-change-and-grow.html

[Stay-at-om-mom]

I also took your survey and have identical comments to the previous commenter regarding how many times my partner said (x) within a 2 week period.  By answering honestly, I had to think that maybe we had 2-3 discussions where I needed to discuss something like the scenarios given, and in that time 2-4 times hearing one of the positive comments equals him saying it almost 100% of the time in response to my need.  But, this is interpreted in the test as being low on the emotional support, because it was not said more times.  So, either I need to have more problems in a 2 week period to qualify for a higher number of positive responses from my partner.....or perhaps there is a way to rephrase this to see how often a phrase is used or how often needs are met when conflict does arise.  Does that make sense?

And, yes, like the commenter above I also had to reply that I was tired and that it interfered with tasks, because I am also pregnant.  Could there possibly be a comment box at the end of the survey where people could post something like this to qualify an answer?

Good luck with your research!

[JackPeltz]

Thank you for your comment.  I completely understand your concern about the emotional support question.  We added the follow-up question about if the support you received was enough (or if you wanted more) to help us understand exactly what your concern was referring to.  In addition, I hope that the feedback you received said something about how it was entirely possible that you did not need much support and that you received what you were looking for.  I wish we had worded the question differently from the start, but now that over 300 individuals (and almost 90 couples) have taken the survey, we can't change the question.

Thanks again for your interest and participation (and we would be ecstatic if you could forward the link to others you know who might also have a 2 or 3 year old child).  We're hoping to get a thousand participants before the end of the year.

Jack

[JackPeltz]

In response to your questions, it is ideal to have Flash on your computer to complete one of the tasks (but it is not necessary).

Thanks again for your interest!

Jack

[JackPeltz]

In response to questions I've been getting, YES, we will be recruiting until the end of December. So, if your child is not quite 2, please keep the link to the survey stored away for when your child turns 2.

Thank you again for your interest in the study.  The Mothering community has been incredibly receptive to the survey, and we are greatly appreciative.

The Family Dynamics Staff

[JackPeltz]

Recently asked question: "What happens if I have twins in the age range?"

That's a great question. While it may sound awkward, please fill out the appropriate questions with one specific twin in mind. There are numerous questions that assess family functioning (which would include thinking about both twins), but we are trying to understand how families change in relation to one specific child. We will be able to control for families with twins in our analyses, so please do not worry about that.
Thanks again for your support!
Jack

[JackPeltz]

Hi Everyone,

In response to your recent questions, YES, we have extended the recruitment phase and will be recruiting until February. Mothering.com has been an excellent forum thus far, and we are extremely appreciative of all of the members who have taken the survey.
THANK YOU!