By Benjamin Williamson
What began as a research study on the effects of family interaction on teenagers may end with the establishment of a rare behavioral analysis lab at the BYU Family Studies Center.
Since January, professors from BYU have been gathering observational data of family relations in the Seattle area. This 'Flourishing Family' project is designed to study how family processes affect the well being of individual family members, specifically adolescent youth.
Jason Carroll, assistant professor in the School of Family Life, described how researchers contacted approximately 400 families and videotaped the interactions those families had while discussing specific topics. Now that the information is gathered, the researchers need a way to interpret it.
So they flew to Iowa.
The University of Iowa houses the leading lab in the country for interpreting observational data using rating scales to 'code' it. But the BYU professors did not go to get their data analyzed. They wanted to learn how to do it themselves. So from June 25 to 29, that is what two professors and a few graduate students did.
'We have received training in the rating scales and are currently in the process of training a select group of undergraduate students at BYU to do the coding,' said James Harper, professor of marriage and family therapy, in an email.
Harper said the Family Studies Center at BYU is establishing its own behavioral coding lab after the Iowa model.
'We have collected DVDs of families participating in various discussion tasks, and we will use the Iowa Family Rating Scales to code the...family interaction,' he said.
The Iowa Rating Scales were developed by Rand Conger in the 1980s and 1990s, and are recognized as a highly reliable method of predictive coding.
Developing its own lab will allow BYU to be self-sufficient in the analysis of gathered data. It will also allow BYU to involve students, particularly undergraduates, in the whole research process.
Randle Day, director of the Family Studies Center, is overseeing the establishment of the coding lab. He is currently in Seattle on the Flourishing Families project.
Although the Flourishing Families project led to the organization of the new lab, that will only be the start.
'The vision is that one day, projects around campus could make use of the Family Studies Center''s coding lab,' Carroll said. 'It''s a whole interesting world to get into, this observational and behavioral coding.'