Update on UK Study: Unconvincing

For those of you sticking with the story behind the disappointing study out of the UK that suggests that fathers who care for their kids more than 15 hours a week are dooming them (or their sons, anyway) to a slow start in schools, I wanted to let you know that the more everyone seems to learn, the less convincing it seems.

Aaron Rochlen from Texas has heard back from the administrative assistant at the center where the study was performed and has that group's as-yet-unreleased press release (the embargo was broken by the Daily Mail) and the publication where the research is released. I'll post links to both when they are live, but suffice it to say the attitude toward dads at home (and moms working) doesn't seem at all progressive. More on that later.

Marc and Amy at equallysharedparenting.com have also taken a dive into the data and have come up with some good reasons not to take it seriously, including the use of old data (the kids in the study were all born at least 15 years ago), small effect sizes and a large dropout rate.