Instructions for alternate research participation
1. First, select an article, and read it. This is a necessary step, and you will not receive points if it is obvious to me that you skimmed the article or only read the abstract. It helps to read it twice, once to understand the general content, and the second for better understanding of the details.
2. Summarize the paper, in no less than 3 paragraphs.
o Summarize why the researchers were interested in the specific topic
o Summarize the methods of the paper (include information about the participants and the procedure)
? Identify the operational definition of what they wanted to study (for example, if it was memory, an operational definition might be the number of words from a list that were recalled)
? If the study was experimental:
? Identify the independent and dependent variable
? Identify the experimental and control groups
? If the study was descriptive:
? Identify the variables of interest to the researchers (what variables did they measure?)
o Summarize the results: what did the researcher(s) find? If experimental, how did the independent variable influence the dependent variable? How did the experimental group compare to the control groups? If descriptive, how were the variables related? Was one variable associated with a change in another variable?
o Summarize the discussion: how can the results generalize/apply? What future research did they suggest? Were there flaws with the study that the researchers suggest may have affected the results?
3. Give your analysis of the research. This should include:
o Whether you think the methods were valid. Do you think they measured what they thought they were measuring?
o Whether the participants were appropriate and representative
o Whether the results of the study generalize, and how you could apply them (or is it useless information?)
o Any other comments you have on the article