You will critique one more article related to your topic. You may use these two critiques in the Introduction section of your final paper. You will get feedback about this second article critique before you write in more detail about the hypotheses for your final paper, which will be the focus of Proposal Assignment #4: Presentation.
General Instructions
Locate and read an article from a psychological journal that relates to your topic. Read the article carefully then write a critique of the article according to the format below. Articles must be empirical studies of either an experiment or correlational study. You may not use any of the following: (1) a review article that simply reviews prior research; (2) meta-analyses; (3) chapters from a book; (4) dissertations; or (5) those articles that do not use inferential statistics such as write-ups of case studies, single-participant studies or qualitative studies (e.g., interviews). Critiques of any of these types of readings/articles will earn zero points.
You must turn in a copy of the entire article in addition to your paper. Papers without a copy of the article will not be graded.
Note that you are not required to summarize every part of an article, particularly if the article contains several experiments or many predictors/criteria. In these instances, choose one experiment to review or focus on the predictors/criteria of primary interest to your topic and structure your critique around these.
Instructions for Section 1: Use your own words to describe the hypothesis and conceptual IVs and DVs (for experiments) or predictors and criteria (for correlational studies). This section is worth up to 4 points.
What are the primary conceptual IVs and DVs or predictors and outcome variables? (2 points)
What is the primary hypothesis of the research? (2 points)
(Choose the hypothesis that will examine the relationship between the variables of primary interest that you described above. Or, you may choose the hypothesis that is the most relevant to your own topic area.)
Instructions for Section 2: Describe the method of how the study was conducted. This section is worth up to 6 points.
Who were the participants in the study? How were they selected? (1 point)
How were the primary conceptual variables operationalized? (4 points)
Be specific here and describe the operational definition of each variable individually. If an IV was manipulated use your own words to describe how it was manipulated. If a variable was measured (i.e., DV, predictor and outcome variables), describe the name of the measure (e.g., scale or survey name) and describe in a sentence or two what the questionnaire is intended to measure.
What was the procedure of the study? What did the participants do? (1 point)
Instructions for Section 3: Describe the obtained results. This section is worth up to 5 points.
Focusing on your primary variables, identify what statistical tests the authors used. (1 point)
What did the authors find? (4 points)
You do not need to report the actual statistics here. Instead, write in your own words whether the primary hypothesis was supported or not.
Instructions for Section 4: Relation to your topic. Write a paragraph on how the study that you reviewed informs the development of your own hypothesis and method. This section is worth up to 5 points.
Were the conceptual variables the same as yours? If not, which variable will you focus on? Why or why not? (1 pt.)
Will you operationalize the variables in your study in a similar way, or might there be a more effective way to operationalize them? Why or why not? (2 points)
Do you feel that you would find support for the hypothesis if you operationalized the variables differently (as you described above)? Why or why not? (2 points)
What is required here is evidence that you have thought critically about the study you reviewed and applied it to your own thinking about your topic.
Writing Instructions
When mentioning the article, you must use APA format (for example, Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln (2006) tested the hypothesis that). This means that you do not include the title of the article or the authors first names. See the APA readings on the electronic course reserves for specific instructions. Two points will be deducted if the article is not cited properly.
Be sure to include a References page containing information about the article that you reviewed. Be sure to follow the formatting instructions for the References. A half point will be deducted for each error in the References.
Papers should be typed in 12-point Times New Roman font, with double-spacing, and one-inch margins. Papers should be approximately 2-3 pages in length.
Article reviews need to be written in an academic voice. Academic writing is clear, concise, and devoid of informal and/or exaggerated statements. Examples include:
It is vital to study this topic. It will save millions of lives. (Both extreme and informal)
The researchers went about running their study like this. (Informal)
1-5 points will be deducted for grammatical errors and/or informal writing.
Do not plagiarize. Do not copy what the authors wrote when summarizing, and do not direct quote. Instead use your own words when writing your responses (i.e., paraphrase).
