Critique of a research article

Summary  

The title of this article is Codevelopment of Preschoolers’ Temperament Traits and Social Play Networks Over an Entire School Year. It was written by Jennifer Watling Neal, C. Emily Durbin, Allison E. Gornik, and Sharon L. Lo in the year 2017. This article was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It is the source for critical review in this paper. 

The purpose of this research article was to analyze the temperament traits of pre-school children. Jennifer et al. (2017) stated that children usually start pre-school life with temperament traits, which possibly shape or could be impacted by their interactions socially within the peer settings. One common feature with children is that they are normally faced with huge demands of independence during their early stages of life. They are normally put to pressure of independence, committed compliance with the habitual demands of socializing agents who include teachers and parents. Moreover, children are normally exposed to social relationships with their peers in the pre-school environment. Therefore, during this specific age, they are expected to build social interaction competence. This concept is the basis for the conduct of the research done by Jennifer et al. (2017). 

The research is organized in various sections. Each section is important to the whole content of the paper. Therefore, it is vital to analyze the four sections that are critical to this research article. 

Introduction 

Jennifer et al. (2017) introduce their article by giving a background of the whole of concept of emotions in children. They state that the huge allowance for independence among children usually creates more chance for them to get rewards, master issues and learn. However, it also makes them to face frustration, threat and self-doubt. In this section, Jennifer et al. (2017) also observe that youths or children have to strike a balance between their desires and those of others in a quite flexible manner. This flexibility is necessary in enabling children to effectively explore the social world. 

It is notable in this introductory section that high interactions by children with their peers and adult people make it possible for them to understand themselves well. Moreover, they are also able to understand others properly. It is the essence of social interactions. However, Jennifer et al. (2017) acknowledge in this section that this interactions require children to gain marshalling abilities for purposes of communication, problem solving and conflict management. These are the strategies that enable to a person to navigate through the issues surrounding social interaction with peers and adults. Therefore, it is maintained in this section that there are many challenges faced by children, which elicit emotional reactions in them (Durbin, Hayden, Klein & Olino, 2007). In some instances, others do expect the children to manage theses emotional developments. 

Conceptually, Jennifer et al. (2017) aver in this first section of introduction that the children who then manage to navigate through the pressures presented by emotional reactions have the opportune chance of securing their psychological maturation. Those who cannot gain this emotional control usually find it rough to even settle in the formal school environment (Durbin, Hicks, Blonigen, Johnson, Iacono & McGue, 2016). Consequently, children may have their temperamental traits impacted by the new school environment. 

Jennifer et al. (2017) reveal in this section that their focus is examination of the 3 main research questions addressing the longitudinal connection between dispositional characteristics of children and their social interactions with peers during early childhood. 

Methods 

The design of the method applied in this research article was premised on the 3 major questions, which were the center of the study. These three questions include the one on evidence of both rank-order stability and change in the traits of children over the duration in school. The second question that informed the design of methodology used in this study is about the ability of the children’s temperament traits to predict the formation of social relationships over a period of time. Finally, there is the question regarding playmate’s temperament traits and their influence on the child’s temperament traits in specified period of time. These questions play a central role in forming the methodological design of this study. 

According to Jennifer et al. (2017), they collected the classroom observational measures of positive emotionality. Other measures collected included negative emotionality, effortful control and the peer social play relationships. Samples were taken from two complete pre-school classrooms. It is important to note that the sample size used in this research article was 53 children. The period of time used in this study was 1 year. 

Results 

The findings made by Jennifer et al. (2017) are presented in this specific section of the paper. According to Jennifer et al. (2017), evidence was established from this study indicating that the traits of children have huge influence in shaping the formation of play relationships. Moreover, the researchers in this article do note that temperament traits of playmates to children have impact on the shape of theirs. It is also notable from this specific article that those children with high levels of negative emotionality are less likely to be in strong play relationships over a period of time. It is also vital to observe that children are likely to form social play relationships with those peers who have similar levels of positive emotionality. It is also important to mention the finding of Jennifer et al. (2017), which shows change in the positive emotionality and effortful control levels in the course of the school year. The overall finding is that the temperament traits of children always converge at a point of equilibrium with those of the peers with whom they form social play relationships with during school time. Finally, Jennifer et al. (2017) did observe rank-order stability of the behavioral observations across the school year period within the ranges of moderate and strong. As noted earlier, these observations are positive and negative emotionality as well as effortful control. 

Discussion 

Importantly, the discussion section of this research is simply the interpretation of the results found by Jennifer et al. (2017). The content of this section opens the mind of the researchers regarding their view on the findings made. According to Jennifer et al. (2017), there is huge evidence to show that social interactions significantly shape the emotions of children. 

Critique  

This specific research article gives the position of the researchers on what influences the mood and temperament traits of children. The various sections of the article have a significant value towards the overall output of the study. It is important to note that the content of this article and questions used to guide the research work are quite relevant to my subject of interest. It is my interest to understand the real origin of the changes in the temperament traits of children who are in school. It is clearly evident that this article has high level of consistency. Moreover, the article’s content is coherent and easy to understand. 

Introduction 

As noted, the researchers clearly mention the three fundamental questions they wanted the study to answer. The questions given are quite significant to this study because they give it guidance. They help in ensuring that the methodology designed is relevant and geared towards fulfilling the objectives of the research. Questions stated by Jennifer et al. (2017) are also highly significant because they inform the discussion of the researchers. The content of the discussion section must be in tandem with the questions of the study. It is, thus, important to observe that this study is underpinned by questions stated in the introductory part of it. 

However, this study is deficient of some important elements that make up a good introduction in a research work report. Firstly, the researchers failed to define the important variables in a clear way, which makes readers and users of study understand the distinctions among them and measurements used. Furthermore, the literature of this article does not address all the important issues surrounding the topic of study. This factor leaves the whole article missing vital explanations of crucial variable necessary for the usefulness of the article. Finally, Jennifer et al. (20170 do not clearly state the hypotheses based on which this study is done. The hypotheses were supposed to be mentioned clearly so that readers and users of the article understand what they set out to prove or disapprove. It is also important to mention that this study does not mention the specific gap in literature, which it seeks to fill. 

Method 

The methodology of this study is fairly relevant and suitable for purpose of answering the questions asked. The participants chosen for the study are school children, a factor that makes the methodology of the research to be appropriate considering the topic of discussion. It is, however, significant to observe that a number of limitations to exist in regard to the use of the participants who are children. Since they may not be able to form sound decisions regarding their conditions for the research, a lot of ethical considerations have to be observed by the researchers. For instance, the researchers had to contact their parents for permission of involving them in the study. Teachers also had to be consulted increasing the time consumed in the study. It is vital to note that by deciding to take all the children in two classrooms, the researchers were able to avoid any form of bias in the selection. 

Overall, the research design chosen for this study is quite appropriate given the questions that had to be answered by the researchers. They have clear explanations of the study procedure presented in this article. It is logical to conclude that the research methodology is of high quality. Results 

The results of this study are clear and understandable. However, researchers did not carry out necessary controls for the variables used. Since there are no clear hypotheses stated in this study, it is unclear whether any was tested in the research work. However, the results established by the researchers address the three major questions provided for guiding the study. Moreover, the researchers do not engage in the use of too many tables and figures. The findings of the study are simply explained in plain English terms. This makes the article’s results easy to understand. 

Discussion 

This section of the article is quite important to the whole study because it is where the researchers interpret their findings and give subjective views based on various models. The researchers also consider the content and concepts learned in the classroom regarding children temperament traits in making sense of the results found. It is true that one of the many strengths of this article is the ability of researchers to go beyond the simple reiteration of results and giving deep interpretation for readers. It is also important to note that the discussion in this study is quite credible because findings are consistent with other past studies. Therefore, this study will contribute to lending credence on to the findings and conclusions made by other past research works on the same topic. The researchers do suggest future directions and considerations for improved outcomes. 

References  

Durbin, C. E., Hayden, E. P., Klein, D. N., & Olino, T. M. (2007). Stability of laboratory-assessed temperamental emotionality traits from ages 3 to 7. Emotion , 7 (2), 388. 

Durbin, C. E., Hicks, B. M., Blonigen, D. M., Johnson, W., Iacono, W. G., & McGue, M. (2016). Personality trait change across late childhood to young adulthood: Evidence for nonlinearity and sex differences in change. European journal of personality , 30 (1), 31-44. 

Neal, J. W., Durbin, C. E., Gornik, A. E., & Lo, S. L. (2017). Codevelopment of preschoolers’ temperament traits and social play networks over an entire school year. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 113 (4), 627.