ABSTRACT
The family represents a system in which individual development is embedded in the complex interactions between family members. Researchers must therefore bear in mind the multipartite nature of family data such as sibling pairs’ dyadic ratings of family stress. Advances in the study of families and contemporaneous research on siblings necessitate concerted, empirically sound efforts to move beyond typically studied marital or mother–child relationships. Increasingly, additional family members like sons and daughters or grandparents and grandchildren are included in data collection for more complete depictions of family system and subsystem dynamics. This rich information is often hierarchical, and as such, analyses should take into account that data drawn from one family stem from different generations (parents and offspring) or display some form of interdependence such as the relationship between caretakers and caregivers. Without clear conceptions of the interactions and processes linking various familial components, cross-sectional and longitudinal surveying pose a challenge for research design and analysis. Moreover, investigators may be interested in individual data within one family or aggregated assessments of family functioning such as family climate, complicating the evaluation further. Last, investigations of the family can produce quantitative or qualitative data or a combination of both types of information through mixed methodology.
