final week 6

PSY 510 Milestone Three Guidelines and Rubric Initial Draft of Introduction and Literature Review

Prompt: This assignment is another building block for the final project.

In Module Six, you will submit an initial draft of your introduction and literature review. Your submission should include all of the critical elements noted in the rubric.

Keep in mind the differences between research papers and literature reviews. For this assignment, you are not writing a research paper. You are writing a literature review.

Research papers take a topic and describe all aspects of that topic. They use current articles and books to support the statements in the paper. A literature review is literally a review of current articles designed to support the topic.

For example, if you wanted to investigate color preference among adult men and women, you would first need to review the current studies that are out there on the topic. Your paper would begin with an introduction, an explanation of the topic. You would find peer-reviewed journal articles, like the six in your annotated bibliography. You would summarize each article including what the researcher found, a brief description of the research design, the advantages and disadvantages of the design used, and how it compares to other articles in the literature review. This is essentially your annotations in your annotated bibliography. You will want to add more information to each annotation, but they are a great start.

Then, you describe the gaps or pieces that are missing in the research (if any), ethical considerations (if any), and validity issues (if any). Each article becomes its own paragraph or two (or three) and then leads into the next article. Once you have described each of the articles in the literature review individually, you would collectively include a discussion of any gaps in the current body of research. This is where your research comes in. You are going to be investigating an area with a gap. So by discussing the gaps, you lead on to your research question and finally to your hypothesis and the key variable of the study that is being proposed. Now you have a literature review that contains an introduction to the topic, a review of each current article, a discussion of where there are gaps in the current literature, your research question and how that fits into the gaps, and a concluding hypothesis. Your literature review becomes the beginning of your research report.

Guidelines for Submission: Your paper must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins. This paper should be a minimum of 4 pages in length (not including cover page and references), must follow APA format, and it should cite at least six peer-reviewed sources.

Rubric

Critical Elements Exemplary (100%) Proficient (90%) Needs Improvement (70%) Not Evident (0%) Value Problem Statement Describes the general topic of

the proposal and its importance and relevance to real-world issues

Describes the general topic of the proposal, but does not describe its importance or relevance to real-world issues or has gaps in detail or accuracy

Does not provide or describe the general topic of the proposal

5

Literature Review: Existing Research

Meets “Proficient” criteria and provides an especially well- integrated discussion of the key themes from the articles

Summarizes existing, applicable research, utilizing peer- reviewed sources, and attempts to do so in an integrated way

Summarizes existing research, utilizing peer-reviewed sources, but does not do so in an integrated way, or the resources are not applicable to topic

Does not summarize existing research

15

Literature Review: Research Designs

Meets “Proficient” criteria and provides specific, concrete examples of research designs utilized in previous literature

Identifies different research designs used to generate knowledge on the topic and describes how they differ

Identifies different research designs used to generate knowledge on the topic, and describes how they differ, but description has gaps in accuracy or detail

Does not identify different research designs used to generate knowledge on the topic

15

Literature Review: Advantages and Disadvantages

Meets “Proficient” criteria and provides specific examples from the literature of the advantages and disadvantages of research designs

Differentiates between research designs for their advantages and disadvantages in addressing the research question

Differentiates between research designs for their advantages and disadvantages in addressing the research question, but does not provide specific examples from research, or differentiation has gaps in accuracy or detail

Does not differentiate between research designs for their advantages and disadvantages in addressing the research question

15

Literature Review: Appropriateness

Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates understanding of appropriate research design for a research question

Evaluates the appropriateness of the research designs to the research questions and determines the most appropriate design, providing justification for each

Evaluates the appropriateness of the research designs to the research questions, providing justification, but does not determine the most appropriate design

Does not evaluate the appropriateness of the research designs to the research questions

15

Literature Review: Unknown

Meets “Proficient” criteria and discusses key themes from the articles

Summarizes what is unknown or uncertain about the topic, utilizing applicable research on the topic

Summarizes what is unknown or uncertain about the topic, utilizing research, but resources are not applicable to topic, or summary has gaps in detail or accuracy

Does not summarize what is unknown or uncertain about the topic

10

Literature Review: Principles and

Standards

Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates keen insight into the APA’s principles and standards as they apply to data analysis

Discusses the appropriateness of the data analysis procedures used in the literature as they relate to the APA’s principles and standards

Discusses the appropriateness of the data analysis procedures used in the literature, but does not relate these to the APA’s principles and standards, or discussion has gaps in accuracy or detail

Does not discuss the appropriateness of the data analysis procedures used in the literature as they relate to the APA’s principles and standards

10

Research Question Meets “Proficient” criteria and creates an interesting research question that warrants further research

Creates a testable research question based on the previous research around the topic

Creates a testable research question, but question is not based on the previous research around the topic

Does not create a testable research question

5

Hypothesis Meets “Proficient” criteria and provides concrete evidence supporting the research hypothesis

Creates a testable hypothesis based on the research question and research around the topic, explaining the extent to which the research supports the hypothesis

Creates a hypothesis based on the research question and research around the topic, but does not explain the extent to which the research supports the hypothesis, hypothesis is not testable, or explanation has gaps in detail or accuracy

Does not create a hypothesis based on the research question and research around the topic

5

Articulation of Response

Submission is free of errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, and organization and is presented in a professional and easy-to-read format

Submission has no major errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization

Submission has some major errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization that negatively impact readability and articulation of main ideas

Submission has critical errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization that prevent understanding of ideas

5

Total 100%