Annotated Bibliography On Wellbeing

Data collection

This study would be the first of its kind in Australia, so it is exploratory research and will therefore use qualitative data. Qualitative data would be the most appropriate type of data to collect, as this research requires a detailed understanding of the participants’ experiences. As psychological and emotional wellbeing are subjective terms, this research is interested in the meaning of these terms for the participants rather the researcher’s understanding. The participant’s would also be able to describe their experiences using their own language in depth, increasing the validity of the research. This is particularly beneficial when studying children, as they often have different perceptions and understandings to adults and a simpler level of language.

The data will be collected by semi-structured interviews in a private rented room in a local library. The interviews would take approximately one hour and would be conducted over a six-month period, due to potential issues with finding participants. Once the participants have been chosen and parental consent has been obtained, the

children will be invited into the room with the interviewer, without their parents. This may help to avoid bias in the children’s answers, as they may wish to give socially desirable answers or hold back information if their parents are present. Before the interview starts, the interviewer will have a brief conversation with the child in the hope of building a rapport. This may make the children more comfortable and facilitate more truthful responses. The interview and research process will then be explained to the child. The child will be told that the purpose of the research is to examine general wellbeing, to try and minimise biased answers. They will then be told about the presence of an audio recording device and their right to withdraw at any time. After the questions on psychological and emotional wellbeing have been asked, the interview will end for the children of heterosexual parents. For the children of homosexual parents, additional questions about their parent’s sexuality and parenting skills will be asked. After the interview, a full debrief will be provided to the child. The researcher will explain the true purpose of the research and the confidentiality of the data. Should the child be experiencing any distress, contact information for counselling will be provided.

Materials

The data collection tools that will be used are semi-structured interviews. Each child will be asked a series of open-ended questions about topics such as their parent’s parenting ability and their subjective wellbeing. This will indicate their emotional and psychological wellbeing and its relation to their parent’s sexuality. When appropriate, follow up questions will be asked in order to obtain more information, particularly when their responses differ from previous definitions of wellbeing. The questions on wellbeing will aim to collect data on the children’s experiences in the areas of mood, depressive symptoms, life satisfaction and behavioural problems, as indicated by previous definitions (see figure 1). Questions such as “If you could use one mood to describe how you feel day-to-day, what would that be and why?”
and “Do you feel that your parents spend enough time with you?” would be asked.
In addition to these questions, children of homosexual parents will answer questions about their parent’s sexuality and its effect on their wellbeing.

This will enable a comparison to be made with the children of heterosexual parents, to see whether a parent’s sexuality has influenced their wellbeing. These children will be asked these questions afterwards to try and minimise primacy effects. If questions about their parents sexuality and parenting abilities where to be asked first, this could influence the children’s answers on the wellbeing questions. They may attribute their wellbeing to their parent’s sexuality more readily than if they had not thought about it. Questions such as “Do you feel that your parents sexuality has an influence on how you feel?” and “Do you feel that your parent’s sexuality has effected how well they look after you?” would be

asked.