SFL 290 article review #2

Joy Marie Prior
The Threefold Cord: Marital Commitment in Religious Couples
SFL 290 Critical Inquiry and Research Meth
Section 001
Lambert, Nathaniel M
Article Evaluations DUE __________August 2 2011____________
Introduction
The article clearly stated that the purpose of the study was to further explore the influence religion has on marital commitment level- namely the “sanctification of marriage” a term coined by Mahoney and his study team in the late 90’s. This study is important because it addresses current social issues- namely the article mentions the high rate of divorce in the United States.
Although the review of literature did relate to the study’s purpose not all of the publications were within 10 years of the article being published. The studies mentioned explored other articles that relate religiosity to the reducing the risk of divorce and marital commitment.
The research hypotheses were not stated clearly, possibly because this was a qualitative research. Although I understood from the review of the literature roughly how the researchers approached the research question there was not a clearly stated hypothesis. This would have been difficult because there are no numerical values or statistics that could have been used to form a hypothesis. The study did clarify that it was focusing on religiosity and marital commitment at a dyadic level.
Methods
The sampling method was done by recommendation from members of various religious denominations. They interviewed 57 married couples (57 husbands and 57 wives) who their religious leaders considered especially involved in within their Christian, Jewish, and Islamic communities. They were interviewed in New England and Northern California, and I assume that the couples are from those areas.
There were 57 couples- 57 husbands and 57 wives interviewed. This was a large enough sample to collect conceptual saturation in the data.
The sampling population was over 80% Caucasian but on average all of the couples were considered well educated and able to contribute an average of 7% of their income to religious causes. The average couple had been married for 21 years and attended religious services on average once a week, although the article did not specify if the couple would consider themselves highly religious their entire marriage. They ranged from different sects of religion, but the most of them classified as Christian. The sample was adequate described so that I could imagine generally who was interviewed.
If I know all of the specific questions I could conduct the study. They explained the process of forming the questions, modifying the questions, and clarifying the questions well. I would have liked to know a little about the interview- were they of the same religious back ground as the participant they were interviewing or not. This also relates to me wondering if the questions were subjective and could be considered cross religious, or if the questions used phrases and words that catered to specific religious denominations.
The independent and dependent variables were not specified, but the study mentioned how during the review of the interview the research team made subgroups and also themed the common elements of the interviews into classifications. These themes were collected and organized in an attempt to support one another and the author’s claims.
The measurements of the independent and dependent variables were the people organizing the themes and common elements in the recorded interviews. I don’t know exactly how the information was organized, but after reading the article I learned that the information was reviewed and some of the themes were cut from the study because they lacked support. So, much of it was objective but I don’t really know how else this type of information could be described unless there was the research team chose to use a software that counted the number of words such as “commitment”, “covenant”, and “religion” were said in the interview.
Results & Discussion
The results pointed to the idea that the core concept that by including God in a marriage the stability and marital commitment are enhanced. This was supported by the three specified themes mentioned in the paper and the various subgroups. There were specific quotes from the participants used to support the themes and subgroups. While I read the article I was a little taken back, because many of the scripture used to articulate the themes were common Christian scriptures. I counted two quotes from the ones interviewed of the Jewish faith and did not see any from the Muslim religion mentioned. There were numeral quotes from the interviewed participants who were of a Christian denomination though, and this lead me to wonder if the study was measuring if religion in general has a relationship with marital commitment or if the study was truly measuring if Christianity has a relationship to marital commitment.
I personally enjoyed reading the study, and found it meaningful. This research generates a plethora of new hypotheses, but I do not believe that the study could be generalized to religion as a whole and marital commitment because of I believe the study has an overwhelming domination of Christian views taken in the study by the author, possibly interview questions, and sample. This weakens the strength of the study to me.