Research in Action: How Participant Feedback Shapes Research
How do we design and study interventions that truly improve family life while advancing science? In this interview, Professor Laurie Kramer shares her expertise in navigating the balance between theory and real-world impact, highlighting how the research process needs to include participant feedback to shape interventional programs.
Laurie Kramer:
“Working in the sphere of designing and testing “experimental interventions” aimed at improving family life and that are to be delivered online is very interesting process– and one that presents some interesting issues from a human subjects perspective. On the one hand, you’re motivated to design an intervention that will meet the needs of “real people” (in this case, families). And, on the other hand, the intervention must be firmly based on established theory and research so that you can test meaningful hypotheses that will ultimately advance practice and science. We hope that these goals are synergistic, so that finding evidence to support the efficacy of a particular practice or intervention strategy will benefit people as well as advance science. This approach requires obtaining meaningful feedback from research participants.
In our studies of intervention programs aimed at improving children’s sibling relationships, participant feedback has been invaluable for refining these interventions for use and testing in future studies. For example, we’re currently redesigning the More Fun with Sisters and Brothers Program (yet again) to incorporate parents’ suggestion that we involve children more directly in the online intervention. As a result of this input, we are now designing more strategies by which we can work jointly with parents and children through the online medium. Our goal is to help children learn and enact the social and emotional competencies that past research has shown to be some of the “essential ingredients” of a positive sibling relationship.
We realize that “consumer satisfaction” surveys only provide a limited picture of a program’s effectiveness. In addition to seeking to understand how participants experience an intervention, we also take note of how participants behave—how they actually engage with the intervention. For example, we are interested in learning what barriers parents may experience through the program (e.g., a lack of time to devote to the program, unclear concepts, or a lack of confidence to apply the program’s methods with their children). And so, through embedded surveys, we ask how frequently they apply the concepts they are learning to help their children interact more positively. We note the types of questions they spontaneously ask as well as the kinds of support they request of us.
Perhaps most importantly, the data participants provide through their involvement in the study (in comparison to a randomly assigned control sample) is priceless for illustrating the ways in which the program may have made a difference in their lives. Participants may not always be aware of how they and their families have changed as a result of their participation. Our feedback to participants, in which we present summaries of aggregated results, can be a critical part of the change process.
In sum, it’s a partnership. Participant feedback provides both the impetus for moving science forward as well as the evidence we need for determining how close we are to providing families with effective tools for enhancing their quality of life.”
Laurie Kramer, a psychology professor at Northeastern University, studies sibling relationships and how parents can actively teach their children to get along. Her program, Fun with Sisters and Brothers, helps families manage sibling conflicts through structured training, and a recent study confirms its effectiveness in fostering warmth and reducing rivalry. You can find more information about Laurie’s research here: https://news.northeastern.edu/2024/12/18/sibling-conflict-research/