I am writing to develop the importance of using meta-analysis in Christian counseling research. This email will outline the essence of the research technique by critically evaluating Michael McCullough’s article titled “Research on Religion-Accommodative Counseling:
Review and Meta-Analysis”. The publication entails fives studies conducted using 111 respondents. The analysis identified that there was no particular evidence that indicated that the religion accommodating principles were less or more efficient that the standard counseling techniques. There is thus the need to utilize religion accommodating practices in future reviews (McCullough, 1999).
Meta-analysis is essential in Christian counseling since both religion and counseling involve airing out personal opinions. The two aspects can introduce false generalizations and mixed perspectives. Researchers often choose to make assumptions concerning the different views and the reality of emotions and thoughts. As highlighted in McCullough’s article, the appearances of a situation can be deceiving. The various types of religious involvement may seem like lower levels of depressive conditions (McCullough, 1999). As an enthusiastic researcher, I would like to propose a study that focuses on Marriage Counseling.
The proposed study will provide a Christian mechanism to assist couples in troubled unions. The research query will seek to identify the measures of relationship or marital satisfaction. The participants will be drawn from married couples who have spent more than a year together. The independent variable is the relationship or marital satisfaction. The independent variable will be measured based on the range of years that the couples have been in the union starting from one to more than 20 years. The dependent variable, in this case, is thus the marriage and years in a relationship. They will be measured using an ordinal scale to describe the nature of the data in accordance with the assigned variables (Cooper, Hedges, and Valentine, 2009). The information will be gathered using questionnaires, diagnostics, and self-reports.
Sincerely,
Position
Organization
References
Cooper H., Hedges L., and Valentine J. (2009). The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta- Analysis. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
McCullough M. (1999). Research on Religion-Accommodative Counseling: Review and Meta- Analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology, Vol. 46, No. 1, 92-98.
