T he strength of Ainsworth's research is that more than one researcher had been involved in the process of verifying the findings as relates to a child's attachment to a parent. One of the weaknesses is that Ainsworth does not uncover enough evidence to debunk the other researchers findings. Although Ainsworth does cover attachment beyond the infancy stage, what she fails to do is state firm , verifiable means of attachments due to drafting up her own assertions.
Given that this study indicates a sample size and incorporates one of the authors own previous research, where the study falters is because of some cases missing data. Some cases failed to render data for analysis based on the Strange Situation Procedure.
This study has far too many in-text citations, leaving me to wonder if the authors relied on any analysis of the research they referenced. It does not appear by this case that any observation of the findings was conducted. The study does clearly delineate the measures that were used to formulate the data, having used four measures which include attachment to parents, teacher-academic worries about the middle school transition, anxiety and depression.
A clear weakness of this study is it failed to determine links between parental conflict and attachment disorganization. As far as the sampling process of this study is concerned, African American mothers were used as a primary resource in the study so they were the vehicle but what skews this study is that there is no indication that any African American males were actively included.
The focus is primarily on secure attachment and attachment theory which provides a concentrated study rather than seeming to be all over the place in terms of general ideas and in-depth concepts.
The clear weakness of this study is that it lacks when it comes to challenging other findings but since the study does present quantitative data, there are statistics that help verify findings. The clearest strength of the study is that multiple methods are identified in the study and there is diversity as far as the participants are concerned.