[Continued fromHERE.]

I went to a handful of websites with information on and/or links to a large selection of studies. The first research I read was the piece that had researched all the research on adoptee vs non-adoptee behavior/adjustment/psychological profile.

This was really a lucky find, as it cautioned to pay special attention to the nature of study participants. The major points of concern were:

- "Clinically chosen" and "referred" indicates that these participants were already undergoing therapy or some sort of mental treatment. Clearly, if you are studying people already asserting they have issues, the findings are skewed and not necessarily representative of the population being studied. The exception would be if the study is focused on people undergoing some sort of psychological therapy in the first place.

- Details of study group participants need to be regular and clear. In other words, there should be no apples and oranges being mixed in the same baskets and then compared to pears and grapefruit. Research is not to be a fruit salad. For adoptees, factors such as age at the time of adoption should be considered. For non-adoptees, living with one or both parents is an important detail. This is just a sampling, but as I read through many studies, the clearer the definition of the focus group, the clearer the findings.

- Consider the source: Similar to the clinical/referred point above, look at the source of the sampling for both study groups. Were participants in the study found in public schools or private schools? Were they living in urban, suburban or rural populations? Were they chosen by random sampling from various outlets or were they volunteers recruited from the Internet adoption sites, adoption conferences or other similar sources?

So, armed with this information, I read and I read, page after page of study methodology, synposis and conclusions. Of those studies I found particularly interesting, I tried to read more. I followed links, looked up terms with which I was not familiar, got angry at some blanket statements and enlightened by others.

[Continued. Next blog: what I found in the findings.]