Divorce

Summary
In the study by Nusinovici et al. (2018), the researchers used a quantitative method to assess the impact of divorce or separation of parents on their preterm children’s (preterm meaning born before 35 weeks) academic performance at 5 years of age. Thus, the main variables included in this study were: 1) the subject had to be a preterm baby, 2) the subject’s parents had to be separated or divorced at some point prior to the child’s 5th year (at which point children typically enroll in kindergarten), and 3) and the child had to be in school and able to be assessed by a teacher. The purpose of the study was to see whether there was any correlation between the variables of premature birth, parental divorce or separation, and academic achievement of the child at 5 years of age. The method used was purposive sampling, survey data of “clinical anomalies associated with preterm births” (Nusinovici et al., 2018, p. 2), classification of divorce separation times (2 groups were used—children with parents separated before 36 months, and children with parents separated after 36 months of the child’s birth but before 60 months). Gestational periods also served to classify the subjects, with three groups being determined, ranging from 24 to 27 weeks of gestation on up to 32 to 34 weeks of gestation). To assess the children academically the Global School Adaptation (GSA) questionnaire was given to teachers to assess the subjects and used to assess behavior and academic ability among the subjects. The main findings of the study showed that among preterm children, those who experience a divorce or separation of parents between the ages of 3 and 5 tended to scores a lower GSA and perform academically poorer overall than preterm children whose parents separated or divorced prior to the child turning 3 or whose parents were not separated at all. The implications of the findings were that preterm children whose parents separate may require more academic and social support in making the adjustment to schooling.
Critique
The sample size of this study was suitably large with over 3,300 babies included in the sample. The longitudinal study monitored these children from 2003 when the births began to be recorded to 2011 when the final year of analysis of academic performance was conducted. The study showed that more than 7000 preterm babies were born between 2003 and 2011 and that more than a thousand of them were excluded from the study because they indicated a lack of adequate neurodevelopment, which would have made them outliers in the study and thrown off the skew. Of the remaining children, 70% of them were evaluated using the GSA. The subjects all came from the LIFT network of maternity wards in the Pays-de-la-Loire region of France. The sample thus provides a suitable size for the study and is defined well enough that the study could be repeated if necessary to verify validity and reliability.
No research model was used in this study as it was exploratory research with an empirical aim—namely to provide quantitative data on the academic abilities of preterm babies at age 5 whose parents had separated or divorced. Because the study was exploratory in nature, it did not have a hypothesis or a research model: the study was descriptive, which was appropriate for the purposes of the study. Were a research model to be used the conceptual model would most likely be appropriate, based on findings of a case study using a similar subject (albeit one with a much smaller sample size, as case studies are not conducive to large samples) from which a degree of generalizeability could be obtained to aid in the construction of the conceptual model. A better approach would have been to formulate a hypothesis and then conduct a randomized controlled trial experiment to test the hypothesis. This could have been done as there was nothing surprising about these findings and they could have easily been hypothesized based on an assessment of relevant available literature. With that hypothesis, the researchers could have conducted a study to control for various factors and actually test the hypothesis instead of conducting what could be seen as unnecessary field work.
The research does have a degree of validity because it does show how it measures what it sets out to measure. It describes the measurement instrument, which is the GSA and which is described as being a standard instrument tool in France, used by the French ministry of education during its examination of student achievement in the public schools in France, so its validity has already been established. However, the one negative of this study’s approach is that it only takes into consideration the three variables—the preterm gestation period, the parental situation of the children (whether divorced, separated or still together), and the behavior and academic ability of the 5 year old child. There are a number of problems with this limited scope analysis. First, divorce is common in families today with roughly half of all marriages ending in divorce. Second, most preterm babies do not suffer any neurodevelopment issues. Third, there are many factors likely to impact a child’s behavior and academic ability at age 5—and while it may be possible to determine correlation between parental divorce and poor academic ability and behavior, as this study does, correlation does not mean causation. The study only investigates these few variables and does not control for others. As this study is not a randomized controlled trial experiment but is only exploratory in nature, its validity is going to be limited as well.
The authors concluded that divorce and separation was only really impactful on students who experienced the divorce or separation between the ages of three to five and then it is likely that their ability to engage academically was also impacted by stress factors in the home leading up the divorce. The researchers acknowledge that there is ample literature available to explain this, which just begs the question of why this study was necessary. While it does provide quantitative data regarding the age at which divorce is likely to be most impactful on a child’s academic performance, the study does not provide anything conclusive, as the researchers note a number of limitations and a host of other factors and variables that could also be impactful on the student’s performance—such as whether the child moved, whether there was stress in the home, whether there were financial problems in the family, and what the parenting roles were at the time. I agree with all of these conclusions.
This researcher would be useful to clinicians in terms of understanding when children are likely to be most vulnerable to parental divorce and separation, but beyond that the study is not likely to offer much new information. My opinion on the journal article is that it is well organized and well written. The study is set up and explained perfectly well, but the overall purpose of the study seems redundant compared to information that is already available on this subject—i.e., the negative impacts of divorce on young children. Adding the variable of preterm birth into the mix is not that compelling as most preterm babies do not suffer long term cognitive disabilities. The study’s utility, therefore, is limited in that it does not test any new hypothesis and its exploration is limited by scope of variables.

References
Nusinovici, S., Olliac, B., Flamant, C., Müller, J. B., Olivier, M., Rouger, V., ... & Hanf,
M. (2018). Impact of parental separation or divorce on school performance in preterm children: A population-based study. PloS one, 13(9), e0202080.