Limitations of the Study and Recommendations for Future
Research
There are clearly limitations to this study, some of which have already been acknowledged earher in this discussion. Such limitations mean that any inferences can only be made tentatively, and must be treated with a degree of caution. However, particularly given the pilot nature of this project, the limitations far firom invahdate the main findings of the research.
The Sample
The method of recruitment has the potential to lead to a self-selected sangle. This may account for the low depression characteristics in the group which may have influenced some of the results. Having said that, the sample appears to represent a diverse group in terms of its demographic characteristics, and is not unrepresentative of the nurseries firom which participants were recruited.
attributable to some underlying demographic variable. However, such a diverse group may have in itself influenced the results. It is not clear whether the cultural differences in the way depression is expressed, and representations inferred might mask associations that may be found in a less diverse group? Such a problem is conq)ounded by the relatively small sample size in this study.
The sanq)le size also has a bearing on the reliability with which inferences can be made from these findings. Cohen (1992), recommends a sample of around 22 for a pilot study such as this, using correlational analysis, which is interested in looking for broad associations with relatively large effect sizes, such as those which have previously been found between levels of depression and discrepancy in child behaviour ratings (Richters, 1992). Therefore, we can assume some degree of statistical power in drawing tentative conclusions from the findings of the correlational analysis in this study, but the outcome of the regression analysis must be treated with a degree of caution. Future research may consider the targeting of a less self-selective, less culturally diverse, and larger sample.
The Design
The design of the project resulted in the exploratory analysis of a relatively large number of repeated variables within the same data set. Therefore, it is possible that some of the associations found to be significant at the p < .05 level may have occurred by chance. A more conservative approach may have been only to consider correlations significant at p < .01, therefore reducing the probability of Type I errors. However, given the pilot nature of the research it seems
appropriate to employ a broader band of statistical significance with the proviso that suggested associations are more rigorously tested in subsequent research.
Furthermore, all naturalistic, correlational designs such as this present the difficulty of making causal inferences about the associations suggested in the findings. Although there is evidence from elsewhere that representation may precede actual experience (Fonagy, Steele and Steele, 1991, and Fava Vizziello
et al. 1993), from this study we cannot make inferences as to whether for
example, the representations of self as less positive, precede participants’
perceptions of their child as more deviant, or whether the representations of self developed out of these perceptions. Previous research and theory regarding such causahty would tend to suggest the former causational path, particularly for very young infants. However, this remains a question to be addressed more fuUy in future research. One possibihty would be to extend the range of the longitudinal studies that had taken place so far to examine the stability of pre-natal
representations as the child matures. Another would be to conduct a randomised control trial to examine the extent to which representations of self changed following a therapeutic interaction with the child to reduce the severity of behaviour problems.
The Measures
AH the measures used in this research have been shown to demonstrate
reasonable psychometric properties. Also, the scales employed to rate the free- response descriptions demonstrated reasonable inter-rater rehabihty, including
those adopted from the AAI. Furthermore, the dimensions of representations rated in the free-response descriptions were chosen on the basis of proven
operational definitions that could be apphed equally to all three representations of self, child, and own mother. These are aU strengths of the measures of
representations. However, what we can be less sure of is that the dimensions measured amount to the most important aspects of representations when
considering predictors of discrepancy in child behaviour problem ratings. Future research may wish to address this issue by adopting a bottom-up approach using thematic analysis of descriptions to explore which specific themes offer the greatest discriminant vahdity between groups of high-discrepant and low- discrepant mothers.
Finally, this research suggests that a mother’s subjective experience of her child is associated with discrepancy in behaviour ratings. In this study, this subjective experience has been conceptualised in terms of ‘representations’. A limitation of this is that at present the concept of representations is still not clearly defined within the research domain. However, the suggestion from the findings that some aspect of a mother’s subjective experience appears to be associated with discrepancy in child behaviour problem ratings is perhaps of more in^ortance at this stage than whether this subjective experience is best conceptualised as representation, or as some other construct. Future research might seek to pin point an operational definition of such subjective experience, be it conceptualised in terms of representations or not.
Relationship Between Mothers’ and Criterion Ratings of Child Behaviour Problems, and Discrepancy Scores
As mentioned earlier, in any rating pair the discrepancy is the product of both the mother’s and the criterion rater’s subjective experience of the child. This raises the question of whose experience of the child is more important in contributing to the discrepancy? In the normal way such a question may be addressed though regression analysis. However, with a measure such as discrepancy, regression analysis is not possible due to the singularity of the matrix produced by the dependant variable: discrepancy, being the product of the two independent variables, the mothers’, and the criterion rating of the child (Howell, 1982). However, such a question might begin to be addressed if measures of the mental states of both raters in a pair were examined, by examining which were the most important predictors of discrepancy in the pair.