CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

INTRODUCTION

Rationale

The majority of individuals around the world have at least one sibling. A sibling-to-sibling

relationship is likely to last longer than any other relationship in one’s lifetime and plays an

integral part in the lives of families (Howe, PhD and Recchia, PhD, 2014). Yet, in

comparison to the abundance of literature on parent-to-child relationships, there is relatively

little attention dedicated to the role of siblings and their impact on one another’s

development. There is no doubt that external factors such as sibling interactions affect

individuals’ identities and behavior towards society and family. According to Feinberg (n.d.),

sibling relationships influence adjustments of the children towards society and family and their

development as individuals. It is in the early period of an individual’s life when they are prone to

be attached to a sibling who constantly interacts and makes contact with them. Grounded in the

early writings of (Bowlby, 1969), the Attachment theory seeks to explain developmental

changes in an infant’s early life. This perspective targets the early bond between infants and

their primary caregivers as a major catalyst towards the infants’ survival. By virtue of their

characteristics and behaviors just like crying and being attached towards their caregiver, infants

promote proximity to their caregivers, beginning in the first days of life, for there is a

chance for that certain caregiver to be a sibling. This citation goes to show one of the finite

possible ways of how siblings play a major role in their fellow sibling’s infancy and early stages

of childhood.

In most industrialised societies, siblings are understood to be individuals with two

parents in common, with half-siblings sharing one parent, step-siblings and/or adoptive

siblings being bound by legal bonds rather than genetics (Cicirelli, 1994). However, in some

non-industrialised societies, the term sibling may be understood in very different ways; for

example the Malo culture includes same-sex cousins, same sex aunts or uncles and same

sex grandparents (Rubenstein, 1983) or the Kenyan Giriama people, for whom siblings include

all children of the tribe or village of the same age (Wenger, 1989).

According to (Dunn 1983), sibling interactions are encompassed by sibling relations.

Due to everyday near-impossibility to not have interactivity amongst each other; the words they

utter, the things they do for one another well as their behavioral patterns when interacting

which may be enough to describe their relationship with one another. A sibling relationship
is

a dynamic one which may change over the course of the lifespan from being playmate,

caretaker, friend, and rival before becoming more egalitarian and an important source of support

and solidarity. Parsons (1943), suggested that kin relationships can be described as groups of

“nested circles”. During childhood siblings are generally to be found in the “inner circle” but this

may change as they age with their life circumstances changing, causing them to move to the

outer circles (White and Riedmann, 1992).

The reason why the researchers have decided to conduct a study on sibling relations;

more specifically, sibling issues and their root causes, manifestations, and interventions is to

uncover the underlying reasons that could be a cause for the said interaction. An individual’s

character development is indeed primarily affected by external forces, but, in this study, the

researchers are to focus on a factor which are the siblings that surround and interact with the

individual almost everyday. The target respondents for this study are individuals that are
currently in the high-school level of education for science has proven that this is one of the

periods in an individual's life when there is a boost of psychological maturity and the target

audience experiences not only physical growth and change, but also emotional, psychological,

social, and mental change and growth.

The main objective for this study is to have a deeper understanding of sibling

relationship. The researchers hope that as the research is to be completed in the future that

their study will provide society a deeper understanding of sibling issues and their root causes,

manifestations, and interventions through a simple yet brief set of explanations. The

researchers do anticipate that when their work is hopefully completed and read by others, the

readers are able to not necessarily prevent any sibling conflicts, rather, to help remind

themselves why sibling conflicts are a must and the beauty of having a sibling.

THE PROBLEM

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to know the behaviors of those who have siblings in the context of

sibling relationships. Moreover, the researchers want to identify the causes of these

behaviors.

to find out the factors that influence why these individuals behave

in such a manner as well as to have a deeper understanding of sibling relationships.

To be specific, this study seeks to answer the questions:

1. How does one child behave towards his/her siblings at home?

2. What are the reasons behind these behaviors?

 3. How have these behaviors affected his/her relationship with his/her siblings?

Note: There is a paragraph after the first paragraph that has appeared in this document (or
that it has not been deleted by the owners of the file). The word “causes” in the paragraph
for the general problem statement is better replaced with “reasons”.

Significance of the Study

The findings of this study will redound to the following : (You used the word “redound”,
but are you really aware of what the word exactly means? Do you know what now is the
meaning of sentence where that word has been placed?

Individuals with siblings. The ones who are being studied and giving data to the

researchers, they are to be told of the results of this study so that they contemplate and together

with the researchers, achieve the researcher’s deeper understanding of sibling relationships. If

there is any conflict going on with the respondents and their siblings, hopefully, this research is

able to help lessen or as much as possible, stop and prevent more serious conflicts with the
new

mindset that they are always beneficial to their (respondents) development. SIMPLIFY: So
much use of flowery expressions. So many irrelevant words.

Parents with more than one child. With the knowledge that they can get from this

research, parents with more than one child can understand the essence of the conflicts

of their children and not to take them too seriously. With this mindset, the researchers hope that

these parents to empathize. (The last statement is grammatically incorrect; it cannot even
qualify as a sentence.)

Future Researchers. They can use this study as a future reference, if so they decide

to embark on the same journey the researchers who conducted study had.(The dependent
clause you constructed is grammatically incorrect.)

Audience. When the audience reads the case study of the researchers. The
researchers can share the same understanding with the audience and will have many different

perspectives of understanding sibling relationships. (You included this group but that word
“audience” is too broad that it can already cover the three other groups that you have
enumerated.)

Note: Talking about research, the kind of sentences and structure that you are using cannot
impress a panelist. Let me be honest with that. We are not after of how long your statements
may seem; we want to see what you REALLY want to convey. The presentation that you did,
especially with the first group of beneficiaries of the research, is quite unnecessary.

One thing that I noticed is that your verbosity leads to many faulty sentences. Simpler
sentences truly help in conveying ideas that can be better understood.

Scopes and Limitations (The tense of the verbs should not be in the past because
the study has not been conducted yet. You even went with a present perfect verb
(e.g., “have had”). I hope you know what the use of that verb means in your
sentence.)

This study focuses on the relationships and interactions of the respondents with

their siblings within the premises of their homes. The data collection will be conducted

to only a set of individuals who were chosen as respondents and have had a sibling for

a period of time. This study will not cover other problems that are not related in the

context of the respondents’ households and ideas that may pull the focus on

understanding sibling relations more, away.(How can you filter out those problems that
you are referring to when those problems could probably be part of their interactions
and the creation of their relationships?) The other individuals who don’t (We never use
contractions in research.) have

siblings are, without a doubt(This is what I meant when I said that you truly are fond of
using embellished expressions.), not subjected to this study. However, rude as it may

sound, individuals who have had a sibling but have become deceased, can be
respondents for this study.(This could have been resolved if you are going to be
particular with the kind of relationship that you want your participants to actually recall or
look into.) The study would be done through the utilization (You make it sound as
though you are consuming/using up interviews) of interviews

with the respondents. By their strategy,the researchers will be able to gain a deeper

understanding of sibling relationships, why, and how their interactions go that way.
(Honestly, this sentence does not serve any purpose anymore in this part of your
research paper because the idea here has already been established in the general
problem statement.)

NOTE: There are still points to place in the scope and limitations. Always look into what
you will do and what you will not look into. Then evaluate if that really is within the scope
of your research. You just might include something which, in the first place, is never
within your study’s intent.

Score for the Problem: 27/30

Score for the Significance: 18/30

Score for the Scope: 19/30

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Design

This section shall discuss the research method available and what is applicable for it to

use in response for the statement of the problem which is directed regarding to sibling

relationships. This research will be a correlational research. Correlational researches

can be used to see if two variables are related and to make predictions based on this

relationship. The reason why the researchers have chosen this form is due to them them

wanting to study the causes of the respondents’ behaviors as well as the cause and effects of

their interactions with one another. Also, the researchers would choose to use a correlational
study rather than an experiment because the statistical relationship of interest is thought to be

causal, but the researchers may not manipulate the independent variable because it is
impossible

and unethical.

Research Environment

This study will be conducted in the researchers’ individual homes, through a

communication software called Discord. Discord is designed to provide voice and text chat for

free, initially, discord was built for gamers to use the software and have some features that are

intended to make it comfortable for gamers to use. Those features include reducing

use of resources to leave them available for games such as lesser band-width usage same as

data consumption.

Discord has the features that are found in other chat apps like the ability to make

different groups and create channels to talk within them .Although, Discord was built with

gamers in mind, its versatility made it a suitable tool for others like fan groups or just people

who wish to connect with others. It can be used as a regular messaging service as well even if

you’re not a gamer. It is also very easy to set up your own server; and, it is downloadable right

away.

Research Participants

The respondents to this study are individuals within the age range of fifteen to eighteen

years old with the eldest being seventeen years old so far. As of the time that this message is

read, there are a very few count of individuals who have not agreed to become respondents and

are still being awaited by the researchers. So far, all the respondents are male and will hopefully

remain the way it is. Also, the researchers had learned that the minimum sample population for
a qualitative research is five to fifty individuals. Although there are currently four confirmed

respondents to this study, the researchers have originally planned to have less than eight

respondents due to the anticipated amount of data to be gathered.

Research Instruments

The researchers decided to conduct interviews with the respondents as a means to

gather textual data; specifically, semi-strcutured interviews. The instrument used was an

interview with the use of researcher-made key points to focus on. In the preparaton of the

instrument, the requirements in designing a good data collection instrument were taken into

account. For instance, statements describing the sensitive situations or traumatic experiences

were not forciblytaken from the respondents, although, if there are, it is only done voluntarily by

the respondent/sthem/him/herself and allowed the researchers to include it as textual data.

Open-ended options were provided to accommodate free formatted views related to the topics

or issues at hand. In this way, the instrument is authorized to obtain the valid responses of the

respondents. Preference for the use of interviews is premised on several research assumptions,

that, are similar with questionnaires are (a) there is no monetary cost to be considered aside

from the load and mobile data consumed during the interview proper, (b) flexibility, (c) less

pressure fromimmediate responses due to a normal conversational atmosphere that is

developed, and (d) the exclusion of anonymity with respect to the problem researched. In the

end, it encouraged open responses to sensitive and private issues at hand.

Data Gathering Procedure

 The first step before conducting the interview proper is to present a request letter to be

given to the respondents from the researchers. Knowing that this period in time is during a

technological era and pandemic, the researchers had done the giving of request of letters

through the use of electrical email and social media. Upon approval, the researchers retrieve

the request letter. The Practical Research 1 adviser as well as the principal had approved such

act. In administering the key questions and conducting the interview proper, no time for online

class or emergencies were deprived of the respondents by the researchers.