week 5 lab dis

Amber Conte RE: Discussion - Week 5 COLLAPSE          Writing a successful journal article is a strategic process. An article by Beauchamp, Greenfield, and Campobello (1998) can be compared to a newer article by Gregus, Stevens, and Seivert (2020) in regard to the substance of the research and how it is written.           The first article was written in 1998 so the language is a bit older and outdated already. The introduction is very short and doesn’t provide much of a literature review. The literature is an important part of an article because it provides a basis for the current research and explains why the research is relevant. Galvan (2015) mentions looking for explicit definitions of key terms in the literature when analyzing an article. The newer article clearly states definitions needed to understand the research; for example, they define culture and multicultural in order to help the reader better comprehend the research (Gregus et al, 2020). The older article doesn’t define significant terms like systematic desensitization or implosion therapy, which makes the article harder to grasp (Beauchamp, Greenfield, & Campobello, 1998).             Next, looking at the methodology itself can determine the strength of an article (Galvan, 2015). In the “bad” article the methodology is described appropriately, however, the age range of participants is questionable (21 to 65 years of age). This may make it difficult to generalize since it covers such a large range of individuals. Also, there is no mention of any strengths or weaknesses of the research in the discussion section of the article (Beauchamp, Greenfield, & Campobello, 1998). It is recommended to look for both methodological strengths and weaknesses and if the research method has provided any new insight (Galvan, 2015). Gregus et al. (2020) were able to identify limitations and future research in their article. They mentioned how the sample size was limited and the generalizability also wasn’t great due to the limits in representativeness (Gregus et al, 2020). By acknowledging these aspects of the article, it shows the reader that the researchers are aware of the weaknesses and not impacted by certain bias.  References Galvan, J. L. (2015). Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and behavioral sciences (6th ed). Glendale, CA: Pyrczak.  Beauchamp, M., Greenfield, M. D., & Campobello, L. (1998). Treatment of flying phobia: Comparative efficacy of two behavioral methods. In Meltzoff, J. (Ed.), Critical thinking about research: Psychology and related fields. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.  Gregus S., Stevens, K., & Seivert, N. (2020). Student perceptions of multicultural training and program climate in clinical psychology doctoral programs. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, Vol 14(4), 293-307.  Rina Asghar RE: Discussion - Week 5 COLLAPSE An evaluation of both the “good” and “bad” journal articles As researchers, it is incumbent on us to critically review an article so it can be included in a  literature review (Stadtlander, 2015; Galvan and Galvan, 2015). We have all read articles and while they can be easy to read, it is necessary to be able to critically study the article to understand what the writer is trying to put forward. To build credibility as a researcher, we must include meaningful research that has been peer-reviewed or vetted. When reading an article, Stadtlander (2015) has posited that there are certain elements that a researcher should look for and they include the literature review, the research methods, and the references. The literature review section of an article is important as it establishes the problem that is being studied, the theories being used to support the research, and most important of all, the research questions (Stadtlander, 2015; Galvan and Galvan, 2015). The research method should be clearly identified in the methods section, the references should be examined carefully to ensure their reputation and the publisher should be credible (Stadtlander, 2015). According to Walden University (2015a), it is necessary to ensure that the article has been peer-reviewed and is scholarly as opposed to popular. The content of all articles must be assessed and evaluated to ensure facts, verifiable claims, and language that is unbiased (Stadtlander, 2015). The purpose of the article by Beauchamp et al. (1998), was to study an individual's anxiety pertaining to flying by conducting systematic desensitization or implosion therapy while the article by Gregus et al. (2020) was to assess clinical psychology doctoral students perceptions of their program’s multicultural training and program climate regarding multiculturalism. The bad article did not clearly identify a research question thereby leaving the reader to assume it based on the purpose. It also did not provide the gaps in the literature (Beauchamp et al., 1998). The good article was well written with clearly defined hypotheses and well-explained gaps in the literature (Gregus et al., 2020). Both articles did provide methods, procedures, and results, however, when discussing how the participants were selected, the bad article’s sampling method was not very research-based as subjects were selected after they responded to advertisements in the newspaper and were interviewed once (Beauchamp et al., 1998). In addition, the dropout rate was significantly high considering the study only had 50 subjects which are a small number (Beauchamp et al., 1998). The methods section of the bad article is overall questionable and I felt that the author's language was biased and they appeared to present their opinions on the subject in the article (Beauchamp et al., 1998). This was not the case with the good article where the writers were unbiased and did not share their opinions. Overall, the design of the study by Beauchamp et al. (1998) was not impressive while the good article had an impressive design and comes across as a well-defined qualitative study. The 12 references cited in the study by Beauchamp et al. (1998) were older than five years while the good article had an impressive number of 45, of which almost half were recent. The bad article did not include limitations of the study and in fact stated that the treatment merited “wide application application” (Beauchamp et al., 1998). The good article provided limitations, future directions, and implications (Gregus et al., 2020). This exercise was interesting as it compares two articles that were written very differently. I will work very hard to ensure that I never write an article in the manner and style that Beauchamp et al. did. References Beauchamp, M., Greenfield, M. D., & Campobello, L. (1998). Treatment of flying phobia: Comparative efficacy of two behavioral methods. In Meltzoff, J. (Ed.), Critical thinking about research: Psychology and related fields. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Galvan, J. L. & Galvan, M.C. (2015). Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and behavioral sciences (6th ed). Glendale, CA: Pyrczak. Gregus S., Stevens, K., & Seivert, N. (2020). Student perceptions of multicultural training and program climate in clinical psychology doctoral programs. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, Vol 14(4),  293-307.  Stadtlander, L. M. (2015). Finding your way to a Ph.D.: Advice from the dissertation mentor. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Walden University Library. (2015a). Evaluating resources: Resource types. Retrieved from http://academicguides.waldenu.edu/library/evaluating