Marriage Education: what do we know? What should we do about it?

By Harry Benson

Methods of delivery

In looking now at “what is out there”, the first observation is that a huge range of courses is available. Kim Halford identifies four major dimensions that describe method of delivery (10).

1. The basis for the course. Some courses base their ideas entirely on research findings. Others rely on the experience of groups or an especially compelling individual experience.
2. The method of delivery. Courses can range from reading self-help books or watching a marriage video, to one-to-one couple work or group sessions.
3. The course intensity. Some courses involve a short seminar lasting a couple of hours. Others involve a residential weekend or a series of evenings.
4. The goal of the course. Some courses focus on dispelling myths by imparting good information. Others focus on teaching skills.

Evaluation and methodology

The second observation to make about marriage education is that objective evaluation of course effectiveness is extraordinarily difficult to achieve. Scott Stanley highlights the examples below as illustrative of some of the pitfalls (11):

1. People tend to be poor evaluators of courses. Responses are biased towards how much they paid, whether they were comfortable, and whether the presentation was good. Consistently positive feedback may simply reflect these factors rather than whether the course is actually any good.
2. Couples tend to be poor at evaluating their marriage. Typical responses are biased unrealistically high. When scores are high to begin with, it becomes difficult to detect an improvement.
3. The “dynamic” factors that influence couple stability are often very subtle, reflecting body language, eye contact, and the way words are used. These nuances are generally not picked up by the couples themselves but by trained observers using videos of couple interactions. These kinds of studies are both expensive and time-consuming.
4. Designing a study comparing couples who do a course with couples who don't is also very difficult. It’s hard to make sure that the people who do the course aren’t the kind of people who would have done well anyway. This is called a “selection effect”. It’s also hard to follow-up the group of couples who didn’t do the course. Most likely those who can’t be traced have split up. But that can’t be assumed. So there is a problem with “attrition” between groups.