Can we trust the data?

        When you read something on instagram saying "kids are more likely to graduate with a 4.0 if they drink celery juice 3 times a day" do you believe it? I mean come on how can you not... there's videos of people testifying this works and maybe they even shed a tear or two to really sell the reader. But how can we trust that? The answer is we can't. 

        When we read a news article or study we have to be so careful of what information is trustable or citable. Where do they get the information? Or if it is a study that is giving the information is it a good reliable study? The important thing is that you do your own research. You dig, and find out for yourself if something is true or not true. So many times people will see something and automatically believe it is true just simply because it has been published or put out there. 

        An example of this is the APA's study on how different types of home life/ parents affect their children. Their stance is... "Not a single study has found children of lesbian and gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to heterosexual parents." Now this information could be true... except the study they did is flawed. For lots of reasons. 

        They studied the differences of how children turned out in life whether they were in an intact biological family or if they had gay or lesbian parents. One of the many problems with this was that they didn't even really look at heterosexual families. So in reality they actually had nothing to compare it to. Some may argue that they did... When they did compare different families they compared homosexual parents to single mothers instead of traditional biological families. Which also causes different results. 

        Another thing they didn't take into account in the sample size or diversity of their study. Sample size matters because you want to obtain the most amount of data you can in order to produce the most accurate results. They studied around 30 families only. That is a tiny number compared to the amount of parent couples out there. They also only really looked at rich upper class American lesbian couples. If the APA was trying to produce accurate answers, they should have taken lesbian, gay, and hetero couples from all different countries and cultures as well as all different types of social economic status. Upper class, middle class, and lower class. Diversity is a must in studies like these and the APA only had a convenience sample. High class lesbian couples were easy to locate and study. 

        One thing that I found interesting was that they didn't actually measure the children. They talked to the parents about how they parent and what they think and they got insight from psychologists. What they SHOULD have done is, yes sure, talk to the parents and ask their parenting styling, talk to the psychologists, but also talk to the kids. Observe them, check up on them after 20 years when they're all grown up. Look at them and measure things like: if they went to therapy, if they had depression. Their relationship status and if they are capable to have a stable lasting marriage. How they now parent. Their education level as well as drug and alcohol abuse in their life. All of these things and so much more should be taken into account. 

        In conclusion, the APA should have conducted their study more thoroughly. There could be a lot of reasons as to why they didn't that we need not get into today. When you are researching a topic be thorough and be careful where your information is coming from. Don't trust or believe everything you read and take your time looking through studies and making sure that is is reliable and gives good information.