ABSTRACT
The central purpose of the Iowa Youth and Families Project (IYFP) is to elaborate the relationships between economic hardship and specific developmental outcomes, including the psychological well-being of individual family members and the quality of family relationships. This chapter presents the major methodological themes that directly affect how the research is organized and executed, beginning with a rationale for the research design and a synopsis of the data collection procedures. Planning the IYFP required numerous design decisions, many of which had to do with what Kish has identified as the dynamic tension between the three Rs of research design: randomization (internal validity), representation (external validity), and realism, especially realism in measurement. The emphasis on realism in measurement, especially in observing and rating family interactions, focused our attention on a specific type of family structure in a limited geographic area.
