Psychology

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What is the researcher attempting to provide evidence for/study/answer? (This should be in your own words. Put your answer on the next line.)

What population is the researcher utilizing for their research? ( You must describe the population that the researcher is utilizing in detail. For instance, it is not enough to say 100 participants. What ethnicity, age, gender were they? What region or socioeconomic status were they? Where did the researcher find them, etc? Population is not limited to human subjects alone. Animals subjects, neurons, or even neurotransmitters can all be populations. If you are addressing a non-human population, you still need to address the numbers in the sample, developmental stage of the subjects, animal model, etc. For chemical populations, be sure to address where the chemicals can from e.g. natural extraction from what species and what where the species characteristics, lab grown, etc. Questions about population are about generalization of the findings. If you do not know who the research was done on and why, you cannot address whether or not the research will be generalizable and to whom. Put your answer on the next line.)

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Methodology

How is the researcher going to study the research question/hypothesis? (This question is about the “how” of the research question. If a researcher wanted to determine how smart students were by how fast they could swim, it would not be considered to be a valid method. Think about “how” the researcher is attempting to answer the question and put it in your own words. Put your answer on the next line.)

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Are the procedures described in sufficient detail so that the study could be repeated? Explain. (The key phrase here is explain. Simply stating that you think the procedures are clear enough is not sufficient. Please think through the procedure carefully. Did they leave out important steps, were some areas unclear? Part of good science is the ability to replicate experiments. If you really don’t know what they did, how do you know if they really got the results they said they did? Be a wise consumer of science. Put your answer on the next line.)

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Are operational and construct definitions provided? If so, what are they? (Allow me to give you a hint. The answer is ALWAYS yes. So, what is an operational definition? If the research question is how intelligent are children, you must first define what you mean by intelligence and children. Is intelligence the speed at which you answer questions, how many vocabulary words you know, etc. In order to have an experiment, we must take abstract concepts and operationalize them so that we can study them. Then what is the construct definition? Simply the means by which they will measure the operational definition? If the researcher decides that intelligence is the total number of questions answer right compared to other students the same age as the operational definition of intelligence, then the construct definition is the actual measurement used to test this, such as the Standford-Binet Intelligence Test. This section is actually one of the most difficult to think through. Most researchers do not do a good job of explicitly defining the concepts in their research. That being said, this is also one of the most important sections for understanding research. Depending on how we operationally define a concept and subsequently measure it (construct definition) determines what we are actually studying. Two researchers often reach different conclusions (fat is good or fat is bad) depending on 1. What type of fat, 2. What do they mean by good and bad? Put your answer on the next line.)

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Results:

State major results and conclusions . (Results usually come from the results section and are based on the actual statistical procedures for the research. Conclusions are generally based on the interpretations of the researcher and are typically found in the discussion section. Put your answer on the next line.)

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Are the conclusions drawn from the study justified? Explain . (Please recognize that just because a researcher says something, does not make it true. Often times, researchers are biased toward the importance of their own results or research and the conclusions will exceed what the results would actually lead us to conclude. Think back on your discussion of the research population and methodology. Were the people consistent with the conclusions being drawn? Did the researcher actually study what they were attempting to or where their operational and construct definitions inappropriate. Essentially, you are being asked to address two questions here. First, does the research study have internal validity (does it actually measure what it proposes to measure) and does it have concurrent validity (is it consistent with what we already know and have previously established). Put your answer on the next line.)

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Are the generalizations confined to the population being researched? Explain. (Just because something works with one group of people in a given situation, does not mean that it will work with others in different situations. In other words, does the research have external validity? Data is data, but what we are really interested in is the ability to move researcher into a larger group. Therefore, what groups would you expect this research to generalize to and why? Put your answers on the next line.)

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Implications (these need to be your own words and not the words of the author)

What is the significance of the research from the perspective? (Please note that significance is different from conclusions. E.g. You throw things off a building and they plummet to the ground (results). Gravity is causing the items to fall to the ground (conclusions). It will therefore be very painful and stupid to jump off of the building (significance). Put your answer on the next line.)

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What follow up research could be done to further expand the topic? (Here I am asking you to think through weaknesses in the study or areas that they did not address. Think through the previous sections. Was the population appropriate? Could they have used a different population? Was the population large enough to be able to draw any conclussions? What about methodology?Could they have done the study differently that it would have added to the strength of the research? Did they operationally define their research constructs appropriately? Etc.)

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