Hannah Hilfer

Critical Response # 1

Dr. Vigilant

15 September 2014

Critical Response to Lindsey’s “Impact of Homelessness and Shelter Life on Family Relationships”

Elizabeth W. Lindsey conducted qualitative research on homeless women in her paper “Impact of Homelessness and Shelter Life on Family Relationships.” According to R. Burke Johnson’s article titled “Examining the Validity Structure of Qualitative Research”, this study conducted by Lindsey is, for the most part, valid. He proposed strategies for conducting valid research and in this paper I plan to test Lindsey’s article against those strategies.

The first strategy in Johnson’s article is “Researcher as Detective” Lindsey’s work meets this standard of validity. She did act as a detective by asking questions and giving a thick description (Geertz, 1973) of shelter-life and rules. However, she does not work very hard to eliminate opposing hypothesis in her work. This is a problem because it means that she only includes facts that support her theory with no mention of how there could be bias in her facts or data.

The second strategy mentioned in Johnson’s article is extended fieldwork. Lindsey’s research was conducted in two phases. The first phase was a secondary analysis of data Lindsey herself collected for the Georgia rehabilitation study conducted in 1993-1994. This would be considered extensive fieldwork because data was collected for about one year. Elizabeth Lindsey herself also conducted phase two of the study. There was no mention of the length of time this period of the research was conducted, so I cannot say whether or not she meets the requirements of valid research with extended fieldwork.

Johnson’s third strategy is “low interference descriptors.” This means that the researcher worked diligently to make sure the accounts from participants are as close to exact as possible. Lindsey used many direct quotes from participants and even sent summaries of the interviews to the participants for them to review for accuracy. According to Johnson’s definition of “low interference descriptors”, Lindsey’s article is valid in this respect.

The fourth strategy of valid research that Johnson includes is “triangulation”. Triangulation means that the research was “cross-checked” by using multiple other sources to confirm the hypothesis. Triangulation of data, methods, investigator, and theory are all important practices if one wants to conduct valid research. Lindsey triangulated the data collected in phase one with phase two in order to find commonalities in the data. Her methods of research were also triangulated. She used elements of the constant comparative method to analyze data from both phases of data. Lindsey conducted all of the interviews, but she did use other researchers to interpret the data, so she did have investigator triangulation in that sense, but I do not think Johnson would consider it valid unless more than one researcher collected the data analyzed in Lindsey’s article. The last type of triangulation necessary for valid research is theory triangulation. Lindsey mentioned theories of relationships within homeless families in her literature that she used to base her research question and interview questions off of. This is a valid type of triangulation.

The next strategy of Johnson ‘s research validity paper is “participant feedback.” Lindsey did send her paper to the participants of the study for a final review of validity before publishing the paper and was open to feedback from the participants. However, it does not mention much about participant feedback and I wonder how much of the article could be comprehended by the participants.

The next strategy in Johnson’s article is that the paper has been peer reviewed. Lindsey’s article meets this requirement which adds to the validity of the research.

“Negative case sampling” is the next strategy. This means that the researcher found something in the data that was unexpected or not predicated when initially asking the research question. Lindsey did find a few families that were not impacted highly from being homeless or living under shelter rules, however negative case sampling was sparse and if she wanted to add to the validity of her research she should have included more negative cases to her study.

The twelfth strategy in Johnson’s validity article is “reflexivity.” This means that the author of the paper explicity explicitly mentions biases and predispositions in respect to the study. Lindsey did not have a reflexivity section in her paper. This leads readers to question the validity of her research because without knowing predispositions of the researcher, the reader is unsure if any questions or methods of research and collecting data contained biases.

Finally, Johnson’s last strategy of validity is “pattern matching.” Lindsey predicted certain patterns of impact that homelessness and shelter life would have on families. For example, she predicted that families would encounter stress and trauma from losing their home and control over their own lives. She found this to be true in most cases; thus, validating her predicted patterns.

The study in phase one consisted of 10 Georgia women who were formerly homeless and currently stably re-housed for at least 6 months. Key informants from the shelter nominated individuals to be a part of this study based on the informants’ perception of success re-housing.

When looking at this phase of the study critically, I called in to question the small sample size (Excellent Point!) and the authors attempt at generalizing the findings. The sample was not diverse; the women came from only 3 shelters in a metropolitan area in Georgia. Also, by drawing the sample from the key informant’s perception of successful re-housing this limits the study to women who were hand picked and likely very similar. In order to make phase 1 more reliable, they should have randomly interviewed many more women from numerous shelters. (This would enhance “external validity” as well!)

Phase two consisted of seven participants and over represented African American women with a ratio of six African American women to one Caucasian woman. Overrepresentation makes generalizing findings next to impossible. This was also a nominated sample with the same criterion as the women in phase one. Participants in both studies were limited to single mothers, aged 19-52 years old. This limits the findings and excludes young homeless mothers and coupled families who may have great input on the effects of homelessness on family relationships. This phase was conducted in North Carolina from four shelters in more urban areas than in the first phase of interviews.

In both studies, the interviews were conducted with the mothers and largely consisted of questions about how the mother perceived the situation. The study did have meaningful findings about how shelter life impacts the mothering role and what affects came with having to follow the rules of the shelter. The interviews also helped to gain an understanding of the mothers’ emotional states and attitudes about homelessness. A large portion of the data used to understand family relationships was collected through interviews with the mothers about their perceptions of their child(ren)’s well being and emotional state during the period of homelessness. In order to get a more holistic view of the emotions of the children the interviewers should have gone directly to the children for the information to avoid bias or denial from the mother who may not fully understand the impact homelessness had on the child(ren).

In conclusion, Elizabeth W. Lindsey’s research could have significantly added to the knowledge of the impact homelessness and shelter life has on family relationships and could be considered valid when held to the criterion put forth by Johnson, however the small sample size severely limited the findings. In order to explain the impact homelessness and shelter life has on family relationships, Lindsey should have triangulated by collecting data through interviews and surveys from not just women, but also men, children, and shelter employees. The samples were collected through nominations, not random. I believe that this leads to an inaccurate view of homelessness because nomination of participants can be rooted in bias whereas random samples leave out bias and are more representative of the population. The only women eligible for the study were women who were single and managed to make it out of the shelter. This led to a sample of women who were had opportunities to move out of homelessness and hence, probably led to less family dysfunction. I think it would be beneficial to the realm of knowledge on family relationships to also include families that are in a constant state of struggle.

Furthermore, including only two states and 17 women in the study does not make the finding generalizable across the country. {Excellent point!} States have different laws and different social programs so the reason for homelessness among people in different states may vary and contribute to the well being of families and the relationships between members. Another method that made the findings unreliable was that this study relied heavily on perceptions. Key informant chose individuals to be studied based on their perceptions of successful individuals and findings of children’s well-being and happiness were based on the perception of their mother. In order to have sound findings, the researcher should not have drawn conclusions from these perceptions, but rather should have talked to potential participants and children to fully understand the struggles they were dealing with.

The research question was very interesting and very important in order to understand the situations homeless families are in. Understanding these situations can lead to social action that works to benefit and give opportunity to individuals who are struggling to maintain a stable home. In order to understand these situations, more extensive qualitative research needs to be conducted. Women and men of all ages, stages of life and location, as well as children should be interviewed to fully understand the impacts homelessness and shelter life has on family relationships.

References:

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Culture. New York Basic Books.

Johnson, Burke R. 1997. Examining the Validity Structure of Qualitative Research. Education, Vol. 188: 282-292.

Lindsey, Elizabeth W. 1998. “The Impact of Homelessness and Shelter Life on Family Relationships.” Family Relations, Vol. 47(3):243-251.

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