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Alternative Strategies for Creating “Relational” Family Data
Author(s) -
FISHER LAWRENCE,
KOKES RONALD F.,
RANSOM DONALD C.,
PHILLIPS SUSAN L.,
RUDD PAMELA
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1985.00213.x
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , family member , unit (ring theory) , psychology , social psychology , developmental psychology , medicine , family medicine , paleontology , mathematics education , biology
A major problem facing family clinicians and researchers is creating data that will reflect the family as a unit. To address this problem, we present a framework for family assessment based on three measurement strategies: individual family member assessment, relational family assessment, and transactional family assessment. Within this context, we present several categories of methods for combining individual family member data into “relational” scores that reflect the couple or family as a unit. The problems and benefits of each method are presented, and it is suggested that the choice of method is dependent upon the content of the assessment, the theory underlying the content, and the statistical properties of the individual family member scores.