Magic Moment Study Case

Magic Moment Study Case

Introduction

The magic moment study is a research carried out by Christina Gibson-Davis on biological and stepfather marriage occurrences among women after out-of-marriage birth. The research was a quantitative study involving one thousand nine hundred and seven women. The data used in the investigation was from the USA NSFG survey report on “children born to unmarried” women (Gibson-Davis, 2014). Also, the study classified the participants into three racial groups, which are Black, White, and Hispanic mothers. The research intended to investigate the presence of a ‘magic moment’ between new out-of-marriage mothers and fathers that leads to biological marriages after childbirth. Additionally, the study evaluated the frequency of divorce between biological and stepfather marriages after out-of-marriage childbearing. Finally, the author attempts to correlate the results of the study with other implicit assumptions about a child’s well-being in biological marriages compared to stepfather marriages. The research by Gibson-Davis (2014) concludes that biological marriages after out-of-marriage childbirth are more stable than stepfather marriages.

The Research Question or Hypothesis in the Article

Gibson-Davis’ research investigated two assumptions that had spurred several pro-marriage campaigns in the USA. The author notes that the most prominent campaign for marriage in the USA is the Building Strong Families (BSF) program (Gibson-Davis, 2014). According to the author, the advocates for marriage assume a couple of untested theories that the study aims to investigate. The first assumption is that the birth of a child out of marriage causes a ‘magic moment’ that leads the parents to feel the need for formalizing the union. The second hypothesis is that post-childbirth marriages between biological parents are stronger and more stable compared to marriages between the mother and nonpaternal fathers.

The Major Purpose of the Study

The main objective of the study is the test and support the assumptions made by previous proponents of marriage. The study used a descriptive approach to support the research hypotheses. Gibson-Davis (2014) collects data from a national survey program that was in place to help new mothers trace the biological fathers to the child. The researcher collected data from interviews that women (aged between 15 and 34 years) had given to the survey between 2007 and 2010. The study intended to review the mothers’ experience with marriage, which would confirm the hypotheses. Therefore, the study intended to describe the assumptions by generating empirical evidence.

The Variables or Concepts Studied In the Article

The two hypotheses in Gibson-Davis had different variables. First, the hypothesis regarding the ‘magic moment’ of childbirth investigated the correlation between firstborns born out of wedlock and the likelihood that the mother married later. In Gibson-Davis’ (2014) analysis, the birth of a first child to an unmarried mother was the independent variable of the study. However, the likelihood that the mother married after the birth was the dependent variable, which the researcher evaluated. The second hypothesis also had its variables. The type of union that mothers got into after childbirth is the independent variable. However, the frequency that these after-childbirth marriages failed is the dependent variable investigated by the second hypothesis.

The Operational Definition of the Variables Studied

In the first hypothesis, the study recorded a cumulative frequency of marriage incidences among the participants based on the years it took before the mother of an out-of-marriage child married. The author grouped the data into three categories, which are Black, White, and Hispanic mothers. He further categorized each group into three subdivisions, which are whether there was any marriage and if the marriage was biological or nonpaternal. The author generates a table and graphs to show the relationship between types of mothers with the marriage choice and the years taken before marriage. The indicator for this data is the cumulative percentage of mothers that married by the end of fifteen years after their firstborn’s birth.

The article also presents the measurable of the second hypothesis using a table. The table represents the type of marriage against the years before the divorce takes place. The study represents the data as a cumulative percentage for each group of participants and separates each group into biological and stepfather marriage. The research takes ten years as the range of the dependent variable. The indicator for this data is the cumulative percentage of the marriages that experienced divorce within ten years of marriage.

The Validity and Reliability of the Variables’ Operational Definitions

The choice of measuring the correlations as cumulative percentages with a range of years increases the internal validity of the research. The reason is that both concepts measure the possibilities that one event leads to the other. Therefore, presenting the information through percentages creates a clear understanding of the probabilities of each theory. Also, the tables group the data into three racial clusters, which gives the research the external validity. The classification and the high number of participants recorded for each group make the data representative of those racial groupings. Finally, the study is reliable because it shows consistency in each set of data regarding the percentages obtained for Black, White, and Hispanic parents.

The Study Approach

The study has used a quantitative approach to represent the findings. This approach is evident because the research creates a tabulation of almost two thousand participants to support the theories in the study. Quantitative studies present the findings as numerical representations that show the likelihood of the occurrence of the studied deliverable (Allwood, 2012). However, qualitative studies present the findings as ideas obtained through interviewing the participants of the research.

The Study Population and Sample

The research used data obtained from the NSFG survey regarding participants of the survey between 2007 and 2010. The initial sample size was five thousand five hundred children born to mothers in the survey. However, the author used pre-determined criteria to sort the sample size to one thousand nine hundred and seven candidates for the study. The sampling criteria included only firstborn children and a positive or nonexistent relationship between the parents before childbirth. The final sample size had more than five hundred participants from each of the classifications of Black, White, and Hispanic.

The Generalizability of the Study

The findings of the study can be representative of the general population in the USA. The reason is that the study encompasses a large sample size from the three racial backgrounds that are most common in the USA. Also, Gibson-Davis (2014) has grouped the data to represent each racial group. Therefore, the results of the research can generalize the USA populace.

The Study Design for the Research

The study uses a survey design of gathering the data from available national survey reports of the subject. This survey is appropriate for the research because it provides a large sample size to support the author’s theories.

Methods of Data Collection

The author collected data from an available national survey carried out between 2007 and 2010. The article records the data into two tables for each study concept. This method of data collection is advantageous to the research because it allows the research to access the statistics easily and cheaply. Also, the researcher could have collected the data by interviewing candidates for the study. However, this method would be tedious and could cost a lot more.

The Ethical Considerations

The research was ethically sound because it includes only the information that was available for the public before the study. Also, the study does not include any personal or critical information about the participants of the survey.

The Study’s Major Findings

The findings of the research support both hypotheses. First, the study discovered that a quarter of marriages occurred in the first year, and more than half of the marriages happened within three years of childbirth. These results proved that childbirth had a spurring effect of parental marriages. Also, the findings supported the idea that biological marriages are more stable than nonpaternal marriages. According to Gibson-Davis (2014), fifty-four percent of post-childbirth marriages to stepfathers had experienced divorce before ten years. However, the percentage was lower by almost twenty percent for post-childbirth marriages to biological fathers. Also, the study discovered that divorce incidences were higher among the Black population in both settings of marriage compared to White and Hispanic marriages.

My Reaction to the Research

In my opinion, the findings of this research emphasize the importance of biological marriage on family stability. The results also suggest that children can be a unifying factor in marriages. I believe the research can be useful in investigating the impact that marriage and divorce have on a child’s well-being.

References

Allwood, C. (2012). The distinction of qualitative from quantitative research methods. Quality & Quantity, 46(5), 1417-1429. doi: 10.1007/s11135-011-9455-8

Gibson-Davis, C. (2014). Magic Moment? Maternal Marriage for Children Born Out of Wedlock. Demography, 51(4), 1345-1356. doi: 10.1007/s13524-014-0308-7

Heale, R., & Twycross, A. (2015). Validity and reliability in quantitative research. Evidence-Based Nursing, 18(3), 66-67. doi: 10.1136/eb-2015-102129