An Assignment Submitted by
Research Question
The research conducted by Duncan, Wilkerson & England (2003) aimed at investigating the impact of marriage and cohabitation on licit and illicit drug abuse. In order to investigate this issue, the scholars use two theoretical perspectives, namely a cultural framework and a rational choice theory. The first perspective evaluates marriage as a set of cognitive associations that exceed religious and legal rules. According to this view, marriage makes people make better choices in life and recognize their responsibilities, as a couple has to live together. A rational choice theory sees a couple as two self-interested stakeholders who follow only their individual preferences and tend to comply with each other’s requirements only when the choice of not doing so may deteriorate the relationship between partners. This perspective has a similar view towards drug abuse, claiming that the partners are more likely to terminate their habit for retaining the partner.
Hypothesis and Variables
While the study did not develop a specific hypothesis, Duncan, Wilkerson & England (2003) had a goal to address if marriage and cohabitation decrease the chances of partners to abuse drugs or whether the theoretical frameworks were inconsistent. Overall, the study aimed at using risk behaviors as the dependent variables. Also, the research had a goal to reveal if the behavioral effects of marriage and cohabitation have a different effect on sexes. Finally, the scholars had a purpose of comparing the impact of marriage and cohabitation as well as their effect on drug use among couples.
Research Design
The researchers decided to use the quantitative research design. At the same time, the study uses the data collected prior to the research and does not conduct any original survey or observation to conduct a research. Instead, Duncan, Wilkerson & England (2003) managed to re-evaluate the data produced by the previous longitudinal survey and analyze it according to their perspective. The use of quantitative design guarantees the researchers scientifically precise results that present the correlation between variables. In this case, the study is able to investigate a particular phenomenon and support or disprove a hypothesis regarding its nature. In this case, the researchers had the aim to determine the effect of marriage and cohabitation on drug abuse, where the variable of marriage may or may not has an impact on drug abuse among couples. Also, the nature of this influence was the topic of investigation as well. Consequently, the use of quantitative design is justified, as it is the only framework helping the inquiry to determine the relationship between variables and produce numerical as well as measurable results. In this case, the only concern is the necessity to guarantee that the methodology is correct and free of bias. In addition, the methods and procedures have to be validated to make the study reliable and credible.
Sampling Method
However, Duncan, Wilkerson & England (2003) did not collect original empirical data evaluating the drug abuse before marriage, instead, they utilized data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 that was conducted from 1979 to 1998. After targeting the participants surveyed during that research, the scholars addressed those, who married since 1990. Such a method of collecting data is not a usual case for the empirical study, where the researchers collect original survey data. The use of previously gathered information may produce the limitations, as it is essential to guarantee that the previous researchers used valid and credible resources and their methods were unbiased and corresponded with the initial aims and objectives.
While a longitudinal study is a substantial sample for the research, as it contains detailed information on changes in behavior and use of marijuana during the pre-marital and post-marital periods, the fact that the original research did not question the participants every year, may also limit the credibility of the inquiry conducted by Duncan, Wilkerson & England (2003). It was admitted that the original National Longitudinal Survey of Youth managed to perform the surveys among all initial participants, yet still, the data used in the current study did not take into account that not all participants got married during the period of research from 1979 to 1998. Therefore, it is possible to assume that some of the respondents may have married after the longitudinal study has been conducted, yet the researchers were not able to target this information.
Data Collection Strategies
Duncan, Wilkerson & England (2003) used a simple analytical strategy to collect the data. Specifically, they used the original sample generated by the previous longitudinal research and assessed the patterns of marijuana abuse in before- and post-marriage periods. This technique involved only the respondents married during the period of the longitudinal survey. Also, as the researchers aimed at evaluating the effect of cohabitation, the participants who were living with their partners were also included into the research, where both types of samples, married and cohabitating, were compared. The regression performed for the data collection separated the information obtained among men and women, as it was aimed at comparing the effect of marriage and cohabitation between sexes.
At the same time, the data collected during the original research had to be tested according to the progress of the relationship between the couples. Here, the researchers managed to implement another hypothesis, claiming that cohabitation either results in marriage or leads to a break-up, which specified the nature of data collected for the cohabitated couples. Particularly, the study did not collect the data in pre- and post-cohabitation period but considered the cohabitation as a part of marriage process if the couple tended to marry during the period of the longitudinal survey. Yet still, the researchers managed to compare the use of marijuana during cohabitation with the period when a couple was married. By implementing logistic regression, Tobit regression, and OLS regressions of event frequency, the study managed to assess the data.
A primary method used for analyzing the data was a descriptive statistics, which is unusual for the quantitative research as well. Overall, it is possible to admit that Duncan, Wilkerson & England (2003) implemented the results of the study during the previous longitudinal analysis and use the descriptive statistics to produce the results according to the current aims and objectives. Thus, it has to be noted that the researchers do not produce the original empirical data, but generated the results on the basis of the previous study, which limits the research. The results showed that marriage and cohabitation decrease significantly the use of marijuana and alcohol, yet still it is not clear when the research tested the alcohol use, as the initial target was the abuse of marijuana. Cohabitation affects the substance use at a lesser degree comparing to marriage. In general, the study claimed that neither of the theoretical frameworks explains the full effect of marriage, as its impact on drug abuse is larger. While the study answered all initial questions, the methods of data collection and analysis remained to be questionable.
References
Duncan, J. G., Wilkerson, B. & England, P. (2003). Cleaning Up Their Act: The Impacts of Marriage and Cohabitation on Licit and Illicit Drug Use. [White paper]. Retrieved August 12, 2016, from Northwestern University: http://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/publications/docs/workingpapers/2003/IPR-WP-03-02.pdf
