Initial Reaction to the UK SAHD Study

So one of the first people I e-mailed about the UK study that raises red flags about the sons of at-home dads was Aaron Rochlen, the University of Texas prof who has done some serious work lately in trying to get to the bottom of at-home fatherhood and what makes SAHDs happy.

Dr. Rochlen wasn't impressed either, and he's reached out to the author of the study, Elizabeth Washbrook of Bristol University, to get some answers, and he was kind enough to share some of those thoughts with me:

... I feel quite confident that the conclusions are WAY too strong given the procedures, measures, etc. Also, with so many things measured and calculated, as I hope you know, it is almost inevitable for there to be NO findings. In other words, a study like this is destined to find some significant results and yet this project has highlighted (and completely blown out of proportion) a few small findings and made the link "dads with boys = academic problems." ...

My question is essentially, do you really think you are generating fair and reasonable conclusions given your measures, sample, etc.? Further, do you really think that you are at a stage to communicate these strong findings to the media who is even less sophisticated about how such conclusions can be made?

He'll get no argument from me ...