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Go, me!
I just e-mailed my advisor a nine page, highly detailed outline of the results section of my dissertation. It includes descriptions of everything I see in my data, including justifications, descriptions, and results for all my statistical tests that are worth mentioning. (Most, but not all, of the ones with significant findings, plus the important ones without significant findings.)
It doesn't include much in the way of interpretations, limitations, cautions, links to the theoretical literature, recommendations for the future, or, in short, What It All Means. That all goes in the discussion section, which will consequently be more fun to write.
I'll include the top two tiers of my outline (it went up to seven tiers deep in some places) here for those of you who like to play along at home. I know I've babbled about my results before, so there may not be anything new here, but it's certainly a lot more orderly.
I. Comparability of Disabled and Comparison Groups.
A. The two groups are comparable on nearly every demographic variable.
B. The two groups are significantly different in functional ability.
II. Influence of Child Disability on Analog Parenting Task.
A. The majority of parents did not select physical punishment as an initial disciplinary response to child misbehavior.
B. Child disability is associated with increased likelihood of selecting physical punishment in response to child misbehavior.
III. Disability and Family Stress.
A. Parents of disabled children reported significantly more family stress.
B. Parents of disabled children reported having significantly fewer positive social experiences in the past week.
C. Disability is a significant predictor of family stress even after relevant demographic variables are controlled for.
IV. Disability and Attachment.
A. Parents of disabled children described a poorer quality of parent-child relationship than did parents of nondisabled children.
B. Disability is a significant predictor of similarity to the ideal parent-child relationship even after relevant demographic variables are controlled for.
V. Attachment and Family Stress as Potential Mediators of the Disability --> Physical Punishment Relationship.
A. A mediator variable provides information about how, or by what mechanism, an effect occurs.
B. Family stress is not a significant mediator of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
C. Similarity to the ideal parent-child relationship is not a significant mediator of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
D. The relationship subscale "smooth interactions with the mother," which captures elements of social reciprocity in maternal-child interactions, narrowly misses significance as a mediator of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
VI. Attachment and Family Stress as Potential Moderators of the Disability --> Physical Punishment Relationship.
A. A moderator variable affects the relationship between two other variables.
B. Family stress is not a significant moderator of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
C. Similarity to the ideal parent-child relationship is not a significant moderator of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
D. The relationship subscales assessed are not significant moderators of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
It doesn't include much in the way of interpretations, limitations, cautions, links to the theoretical literature, recommendations for the future, or, in short, What It All Means. That all goes in the discussion section, which will consequently be more fun to write.
I'll include the top two tiers of my outline (it went up to seven tiers deep in some places) here for those of you who like to play along at home. I know I've babbled about my results before, so there may not be anything new here, but it's certainly a lot more orderly.
I. Comparability of Disabled and Comparison Groups.
A. The two groups are comparable on nearly every demographic variable.
B. The two groups are significantly different in functional ability.
II. Influence of Child Disability on Analog Parenting Task.
A. The majority of parents did not select physical punishment as an initial disciplinary response to child misbehavior.
B. Child disability is associated with increased likelihood of selecting physical punishment in response to child misbehavior.
III. Disability and Family Stress.
A. Parents of disabled children reported significantly more family stress.
B. Parents of disabled children reported having significantly fewer positive social experiences in the past week.
C. Disability is a significant predictor of family stress even after relevant demographic variables are controlled for.
IV. Disability and Attachment.
A. Parents of disabled children described a poorer quality of parent-child relationship than did parents of nondisabled children.
B. Disability is a significant predictor of similarity to the ideal parent-child relationship even after relevant demographic variables are controlled for.
V. Attachment and Family Stress as Potential Mediators of the Disability --> Physical Punishment Relationship.
A. A mediator variable provides information about how, or by what mechanism, an effect occurs.
B. Family stress is not a significant mediator of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
C. Similarity to the ideal parent-child relationship is not a significant mediator of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
D. The relationship subscale "smooth interactions with the mother," which captures elements of social reciprocity in maternal-child interactions, narrowly misses significance as a mediator of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
VI. Attachment and Family Stress as Potential Moderators of the Disability --> Physical Punishment Relationship.
A. A moderator variable affects the relationship between two other variables.
B. Family stress is not a significant moderator of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
C. Similarity to the ideal parent-child relationship is not a significant moderator of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
D. The relationship subscales assessed are not significant moderators of the relationship between disability and physical punishment.
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-J
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In any case, very good work!
Re:
My participants all had physical or developmental disabilities with a known origin not related to maltreatment. So, for example, a child with garden-variety autism wouldn't be included because the precise mechanism of origin is unknown, but a child with autistic traits who had a genetic form of mental retardation would be included.
Some examples of disabilities included in my study: spina bifida, congenital deafness, cerebral palsy from a documented birth injury, Downs syndrome, congenital cytomegalovirus infection with subsequent profound mental retardation.
The reason I restricted it to disabilities of known origin is that it's been a problem in interpreting past research. Lots of studies show that kids with emotional and behavioral disorders are much more likely to be abused - but does that mean that their behavioral problems increased their risk, or that abuse caused them to have behavioral problems? A lot of physical disabilities can also be caused by abuse - for example, a shaken infant can develop cerebral palsy.
Also, did you experience difficulties about parents being honest in the study?
I don't think so, because instead of asking directly about real-life discipline I used an analog task. (Full explanation here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/rivka/73893.html).)
Given California's reporting requirements, I can imagine parents underreporting physical discipline out of fear.
I'm amazed that there are people who are willing to tell a shrink that they would slap a child across the face... but there are.
For "real-life" abuse research, as opposed to analog research, it's possible to get a special waiver of reporting requirements. There are obvious ethical concerns involved with that, though.