In 2001, Laura Hamilton Thomson finished her honors thesis, "Can the creation of Community Networks enhance social capital in rural Scotland?" (Sounds formidable, but the sections are short and they read easily.) It's a very interesting investigation of the role of an on-line network in community development.
Read with some care:
Methodology and Methods [https://www.caithness.org/laurathompson/chapter_three.htm]
Data Analysis [ https://www.caithness.org/laurathompson/chapter_four.htm]
Conclusions [ https://www.caithness.org/laurathompson/chapter_five.htm]
Then write a short critique of Thompson's presebntation of her research findings.
As noted, a critique is a review and commentary on a particular article(s) or piece(s) of research. It is not necessarily critical in the negative sense, although you may need to comment negatively on some aspects; both positive and negative aspects should be treated. Just because something appears in print, even in an A-list journal, does not make it free from possible errors or beyond criticism; nothing should be necessarily taken at face value.
In this case, your critique should address at least the following issues, as well as any other points that you find relevant and worthy of comment:
Your overall evaluation of her study, including:
Her research questions
Her theoretical base for the study and her use of research literature to support it
Her choice of research methods and her data gathering procedures
The quality of her analysis and her presentation of results
With regard to the following questions, you need to answer regarding both quantitative and qualitative findings, but those who did the quantitative module will be expected to supply a stronger critique of the quantitative findings than of the qualitative findings, and vice versa for those who did the qualitative module 4:
What is your overall evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of the quantitative findings? What do you find most interesting? Least interesting? What did you learn from her measures of central tendency? From her measures of dispersion? What about the relative value of the numbers vs. the graphical presentations?
What is your overall evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of the qualitative findings? What do you find most interesting? Least interesting?
With regard to the following questions, both module 4 groups will have the same expectations:
How do you evaluate her use of the results in forming and explaining her conclusions? Why? Are there other conclusions that you would have considered important that could be derived from her data?
What overall lessons for analysis and interpretation of data have you learned from her study and the other materials in this Module?