Re: methodology enquiry on "best-friend" controls

[bill higgins <bill_higginsus@xxxxxxxxx>]

Although others are perhaps more skilled in research
methodology, the best friend approach seems
problematic.  Yes, it is pragmatic.  Unfortunately,
kids select friends for many reasons.  Although they
may match on SES, they are likely to differ
(significantly) on many other dimensions.  We often
select friends to complement (rather than mirror) our
own personalities.  Therefore, it might not prove to
be the best control.  

Just my two cents.

B. Higgins


--- "JA Dennis, School Policy Studies"
<J.Dennis@bristol.ac.uk> wrote:
> While this is not child-maltreatment as such the
> methodological aspects
> of the following enquiry can perhaps best be
> addressed by asking this 
> group.  Would appreciate any advice/views.
> 
> A colleague is looking at the psychosocial impact of
> narcolepsy on
> children and adolescents. He has a battery of
> questionnaires which he 
> has administered to children with the diagnosis. As
> part of the q'aire 
> he has got permission to contact their teachers in
> order to get
>   1 - a set of information about their schoolwork;
>   2 - the name and address of the next age/sex
> matched child on the
> school register so that he can approach them to be a
> control.
>  
> The problem is this. Teachers are somewhat
> overloaded and responses 
> from them have been poor. When he has got a control
> name and address 
> responses have been similarly poor. His U.S-based
> collaborators are
> getting round this problem by asking the index
> chilren to get their 
> best friend to complete the q'aires which the USA
> people say is better 
> because you tend to get the same socio-economic
> group etc.
>  
> However, it may be that narcoleptic children might
> perhaps attract
> 'unusual' friends and this may make it more
> difficult for him to detect
> a difference between them and these controls on some
> measures e.g.
> self-esteem, depression, health, functioning. 
> 
> Does anyone have a view on this issue of 'best
> friend controls'? He 
> doesn't want referees (assuming something worth
> publishing emerges) 
> complaining that the methodology was flawed because
> of this. It is 
> attractive to use best friends for pragmatic
> reasons... doesn't want to
> find himself short of controls..... he reckons he
> could always compare 
> the narcoleptic kids with norms (where good ones
> exist) but would 
> prefer age-sex matched contemporaneous controls for
> all the usual 
> reasons.
>  
> Any views please email the list and/or 
> paul.montgomery@psych.ox.ac.uk
> (Paul Montgomery, Park Hospital, University of
> Oxford, UK)
> 
>
*************************************************************
> 


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