Maternal employment and child cognitive outcomes: the importance of analytic approach.
J. Brooks-Gunn, W. J. Han, and J. Waldfogel (2002) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network (ECCRN; 2000b) came to different conclusions about the effects of maternal employment--although they were addressing similar questions using the same data set. Brooks-Gunn et al. concluded that maternal employment in infancy has a negative effect on children's cognitive abilities at age 3, whereas the ECCRN found that early nonmaternal care is not related to children's cognitive abilities in their first 3 years. The authors account for this difference by comparing 2 approaches to data analysis: a top-down testing of continuous variables (the approach used by the ECCRN, 2000b) and an a priori comparison approach that involves pairwise testing of specific dichotomous contrasts (the approach used by Brooks-Gunn et al., 2002). This comparison illustrates the critical importance of analytic approach. It also suggests that Brooks-Gunn et al.'s conclusion from this data set is overstated and should not be used on its own as the basis for practical or policy decisions.
Burchinal
Margaret R
MR
Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-8185, USA. burchinal@unc.edu
Clarke-Stewart
K Alison
KA
D002654:Child Care / Q000523:psychology*; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D003118:Color Perception; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007804:Language Development; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011932:Reading; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014481:United States; D014706:Verbal Learning; D014931:Women, Working / Q000523:psychology*