Assignment task:
Research Critique
Psychology: Child & Family Psychopathology
Weisz, J. R., Chorpita, B. F., Palinkas, L. A., Schoenwald, S. K., Miranda, J., Bearman, S. K., ... & Gray, J. (2012). Testing standard and modular designs for psychotherapy treating depression, anxiety, and conduct problems in youth: A randomized effectiveness trial. Archives of General Psychiatry, 69(3), 274-282.
General Description and Purpose: This assignment is designed to help you learn to read scholarly articles, summarize the important information, and critically analyze the research methods and the authors' conclusions. It will also prepare you for critiquing articles for your literature review.
Writing the Critique: A good critique is succinct. It conveys only the most relevant information about a research study. Thus, your critique should be no more than 2 double-spaced pages in length maximum. It is important to think about what information is the most relevant to include. To be able to do this well, you need to understand what the authors did and why, and how their methods affect their interpretation of their results.
Do NOT quote!!! You always want to summarize what other authors have said. You also want to make sure that you don't just change a few of the authors' words and consider it your own. This is a version of plagiarism. To avoid this possibility, you should write your critique based on your notes rather than simply copying from the article itself.
Summary of study (1 paragraph): Your critique should begin with a brief summary of the article. If the authors included information in the methods or results that was not directly relevant, you do not need to include it. The number of suggested sentences given in parentheses below is only a rough guideline for the relative length of each section.
- State the research question the authors are trying to answer and why it is interesting. This is overarching question that has been addressed by previous research that the current study is trying to test or expand upon. (1 sentence)
- Summarize the authors' hypothesis/hypothesis. (1 sentence)
- Briefly describe the methods (e.g., design, participants, materials, procedure, what was manipulated [independent variables], what was measured [dependent variables], and how the data were analyzed (1-3 sentences).
- Describe the results. What differences were significant? (1-3 sentences).
- Explain the key implications of the results. Avoid overstating the importance of the findings. The results, and the interpretation of the results, should relate directly to the hypothesis. (1 sentence). Need Assignment Help?
- Critical analysis of study (1 paragraph): After you have summarized the study, you will want to critically analyze the authors' results and interpretations.
- Begin with a brief overview of the strengths of the study. This would include aspects that increase your confidence in the findings (e.g., strengths of the sample, design, measures used, data analysis technique). (1-2 sentences).
- Next, discuss any shortcomings of the study. Begin with the major shortcoming(s) and end with the minor shortcoming(s) and discuss them as such to help your reader follow your reasoning and recognize the major flaws from minor flaws. Remember, internal validity affects the ability to interpret the results of the research, whereas external validity affects the ability to generalize the results outside of the study. (1-3 sentences).
- Finally, offer suggestions that would improve on the study. These suggestions should be directly related to the shortcomings you noted. These suggestions should help clarify the interpretation of the study. (1-3 sentences).
Grading: Grading is based on: a) a clear summary of the article, b) a thoughtful critique or analysis of the methods and conclusions, and c) the clarity of your writing.