The sample page below is excerpted from the APA's Annotated Bibliography paper template (opens in Word). Your instructor may give you other formatting instructions. Always follow your professor's instructions!
Annotated Bibliography on the Implications of Parental Divorce on Child Development
Auersperg, F., Vlasak, T., Ponocny, I., & Barth, A. (2019). Long-term effects of parental divorce on mental health – A meta-analysis. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 119, 107-115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2019.09.011
The authors conducted a meta-analysis of research on the effects of parental divorce on the mental health of children, including many aspects of mental health such as depression, anxiety, and alcohol and drug use. They included 54 studies published between 1990 and 2017, which means the total sample size was 506,299 participants. They found a consistent negative association between parental divorce and mental health outcomes, meaning children of divorced parents were more likely to be depressed, anxious, and have problems with drug and alcohol use. However, the effect sizes decreased over time, indicating that the effects of divorce are becoming less severe. They authors conclude that interventions should focus on improving mental health of children of divorced parents.
Brand, J. E., Moore, R., Song, X., & Xie, Y. (2019). Parental divorce is not uniformly disruptive to children's educational attainment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(15), 7266–7271. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1813049116
Brand et al. (2019) used longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to assess the effects of parental divorce on children’s educational attainment, with a sample size of 8,319 children. They used the family’s socioeconomic status and well-being to assess parents’ likelihood of divorce and then predicted how much education the children would get. Interestingly, there were no effects on children’s educational attainment when divorced parents had risk factors for divorce, such as economic instability and family conflict. However, children from more advantaged backgrounds whose parents divorced were less likely to go to or complete college.