Inter Rater Reliability : What Do Two Or More Informants Agree With What They Have Observed?

Evidently, she was unprepared for children when she became pregnant but has had to learn to adjust. Paul’s mother falls into a predominate group of depressed females according to certain studies which state that “Rates of depression in women are highest in young adulthood, during childbearing years, and among women with children” (Kessler et al., 1994, 2003). Furthermore, research addresses the correlation between depression and hostility in and toward children of depressed mothers. Paul’s mother understands and recognizes the disconnect that her cold demeanor has created between she and her children. “They looked at her coldly, as if they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up some fault in herself” (Lawrence, 559). “Research also indicates that maternal depression is associated with more critical interactions between mothers and children, characterized by heightened levels of intrusiveness, negativity, and hostility” (Brenitz & Friedman, 1988; Cohn, Cambell, Matias, & Hopkins, 1990; Harnish, Dodge, Valente, & Conduct Problems Prevention Group, 1995; Malatesta-Magai, 1991).

“ Dr. Lawrence Mayer, a resident in the department of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a professor of statistics and biostatistics at Arizona State University, argues that young people aren 't equipped to make these judgments for themselves”(Firger). Instead of fixing their child, parents and doctors are putting a bandaid on an injury that lies within the mind.

Ian is a 5 year old Caucasian male that exhibits average verbal skills, average cognitive skills, and appeared to be of average height and weight. When entering his assessment, it was noted that his clothing did not match, his hair was unkempt and his mother seemed frazzled at best.

Ainsworth also interviewed the mother in order to learn more about her parenting style as well as her experiences growing up with her own mother. She came to the conclusion that three types of children exist—those who are secure in their relationship with their parents, those who are anxious-resistant, and those who are anxious-avoidant. She demonstrated that the infants began to convey "consistently different patterns of distress" (on separation) and protest (upon reunion with their mothers (Shaw, 414). Similarly, the mothers displayed "very consistent patterns of interactions" with their infants while free playing during the laboratory introduction sequence, as well as patterns of comforting the infant on reunion (Shaw, 414). Ainsworth correlated these patterns with infant-parent interactions in the home during the first year of life. For example, children who appeared secure in the strange situation typically had parents who were responsive to their needs while the insecure children often had parents who were insensitive or inconsistent in the care they provided (Fraley, 2).

The main hypothesis of the researcher was that depression and anxiety have a close relationship with BMI percentiles in a "non-obese sample" (Rofey et al., 2009 p. 523). The sample of this study consisted of 285 children. The children were previously used in another longitudinal study that examined the psychobiological underpinnings of depression. The children were "recruited" for the study from community advertisements, inpatient or outpatient clinics at a major medical center, or referrals from other research studies (Rofey et al., 2009 p. 520).

Wang, F., Cox, M. J., Mills-Koonce, R., & Snyder, P. (2015). Parental Behaviors and Beliefs, Child Temperament, and Attachment Disorganization. Family Relations, 64(2),

Hughes (1988) showed higher levels of behavior problems in the witnesses comparison children.(Edleson 1999, p.848) In this sample, the mothers were the primary samples and not the subject children due to influence of the parent the children possibly were hindered due to influence of the attending parent. Due to the fact that the mental health was also at issue of the responding

Though when reaching the 6 year mark it improves drastically for coping efficacy and active coping. During the study they came to a realization that the relations among parenting and coping did not differ when it came down to the children’s gender or by their baseline risk status. In my opinion I would definitely have to agree with the study as I come from divorced parents and my mother was a single parent for a couple of years when I turned 6 years old. My mother had a high quality relationship with me and I feel like due to this relationship it helped me more secure when facing stressful events. I believe that this has helped me in my adulthood when I am faced with a stressful situation, because I am able to cope and handle it

The primary goal of this study was to analyze the relation between maternal expressed emotion- criticism (EE-Crit) and prospective changes in children’s levels of hopelessness in children, and to determine whether mothers’ histories of major depressive disorder (MDD) moderated this relation. The study included 255 children (8-14 years old at the initial assessment) and their mothers assessed five times over the course of two years. Mothers’ histories of MDD were assessed at the initial time point and then mothers’ levels of EE-Crit and children’s levels of hopelessness were assessed at the baseline assessment and the 6, 12, 18, and 24 month follow up assessments. Hierarchical Linear Modeling revealed that mothers’ MDD history moderated the impact of EE-Crit on baseline levels of hopelessness but not change over time. Specifically, among children of depressed mothers, high EE-Crit was associated with higher levels of hopelessness at the baseline assessment and these differences were maintained across the follow-up. However, EE-Crit did not predict changes in hopelessness between adjacent time points during the follow-up.

It is becoming more recognized and well- known around the world that the mental well-being of one’s parents largely affects the development and or the emotional and mental states of oneself. Research is becoming much more widespread and researchers could make important recommendations on how to intervene in the lives of children with parents suffering from mental illness to best prevent harm to their health and well-being as they grow. It has been found that the most common mental illnesses among people of child-bearing age are anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. Most policy however deals with the care of children whose parents must be hospitalized due to their conditions. Much of the current research though aims to show that even those which do not require extreme medical intervention can impact children physically, emotionally, socially, cognitively, etcetera.

This is the first study to examine maternal criticism as a predictor of changes of hopelessness in their children. Past studies have examined the impact of peer victimization on changes in hopelessness (Hanley and Gibb, 2011) and other cognitive vulnerabilities (Gibb, et al., 2012) as well as how physical, emotional and sexual abuse can affect changes in hopelessness (Courtney, et al., 2008). The current study adds to this previous research by showing the impact of maternal EE-Crit on children’s hopelessness. An important question for future research is whether the combined impact of maternal EE-Crit and peer victimization may have a stronger impact on children’s hopelessness than either one alone.

The researchers (Reising, et al., 2013) demonstrated parents who suffered from depression as well as financial hardship did not have a great relationship with their children impacting their psychopathology internally and externally. Thus (Reising, et al., 2013) revealed there are countless children living in the United States surrounded by triggers that may direct them to apprehension, for instance, parents who have suffered or are still suffering from compulsive dejection, financial economic hardship, and parents who are neglectful are a few characteristics that can and may influence children and adolescent to stress leading them to behave in a manner that is not aligned with their community. The following research article are in accordance with the previous literature review relating to parental stress and depression does have an influence on children’s behavior:

Comprehending that every person has their own mind is what inter-subjectivity is all about. It is the ability to understand that each of us have our own set of thoughts and emotions. In addition, it is understanding that our thoughts and emotions can be the same or very different depending on the situations. After reading a few more articles, I learned that affect attunement is when two people share emotions. On the other hand, social-referencing is when a child looks at a trusted adult to decide what to do or how he/she should feel and/or think in an uncertain situation.

Indicates how consistent test scores are likely to be if the test is scored by two or more raters. Inter-rater reliability occurs when there is inconsistency of scores between two or more test which is due to lack of attention during assessment that is the markers did not take into consideration the scoring criterion.

It’s best to establish inter-rater reliability outside of the context of the study’s measure. If the reliability is incorporated in the measure and is extremely low, this can cause serious issues for the researchers going forward. It is highly recommended that a pilot study be done to establish the inter-rater reliability. It is also a good idea to periodically assess the inter-rater reliability if the study will be conducted for an extensive amount of time. There is a difference in how to assess categorical versus continuous measures’ inter-rater reliability. If the measure is a compilation of categories, then the researchers could have the raters mark each category that is applicable to the observations. From those selections, the research team should calculate the percentage of agreement among the raters. However, the research team could also calculate Cohen’s Kappa, for a more “stable” percentage.