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Critique of Research Report: Howlett, N., Kirk, E., and Pine, K. (2011). Does ‘Wanting the Best’ Create More Stress? the Link Between Baby Sign Classes and Maternal Anxiety. Infant and Child Development.

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Critique of Research Report: Howlett, N., Kirk, E., and Pine, K. (2011). Does ‘Wanting the Best’ create more stress? The link between baby sign classes and maternal anxiety. Infant and Child Development. This assignment will critically review Howlett, Kirk and Pine’s (2011) study, which aims to investigate whether attendance of gesturing classes affects parental stress. Howlett et al., (2011) attempt to examine claims, advertised by commercial products, that believe attending gesturing classes can improve child-parent communications, thus reducing parental stress. Participants gave demographic information and completed a Parenting Stress Index (PSI) questionnaire. ANCOVA was used to look at whether attending gesturing classes …show more content…

However, principal findings and design measures used in the study are stated. The introduction appears to lack in structure and organisation. No initial description of research question with reference to what it attempts to demonstrate is present; this is firstly mentioned in the third paragraph. Furthermore, authors first provide a definition of ‘gesturing’ in midpoint of this section. Considering this topic is the phenomenon of the study it would have been more appropriate to be stated at the beginning, rather than after the discussion of the benefits of gesturing; this may prevent misinterpretation. Although an explanation of ‘non-gesturing’ is provided in the discussion section, it would also be helpful for readers if it were included in the introduction; this enables differentiation between the two conditions. Similarly, a definition of the authors’ interpretation of ‘stress’ could have been stated at the start in ensuring readers’ clarity of terms. There is also no statement of hypothesis.and authors do not provide a rationale or historical backdrop, therefore it lacks in significance and does not substantially contribute to the literature. Moreover, research discussed appears to be framed as a general review of literature and set out in list form with a lack of evaluation. For example, research has been described in relation to a study that has found no relationship between gesturing and

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