Assignment 150119: Write a ‘review’ of a published study.
Content of your report You are required to write a ‘review’ of a published study which contains the following:
· First, you briefly introduce the article in the form of a brief analytical summary that contains (a) the research questions (which may be explicit or implicit in the article, in the latter case you have to formulate them yourself, and refer to the relevant places in the article that support your interpretation of what it is about), and (b) the approach and design used to answer those questions. This first element of your essay should be to the point, yet concise (most often 400 to 800 words should suffice).
· Second, you discuss the study you chose in terms of the four kinds of validity that were distinguished in this module (analytical validity; internal validity; construct validity; and external validity). You have to point out and explain in which respects the article is ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ in terms of the various kinds of validity, and, where relevant you are encouraged to also discuss matters of ethics. Most often this part of your essay is the most extensive one and will (most often) be between 2000 and 3500 words.
·
Third, you discuss how the research question(s) addressed by the author(s) of the article that you discuss, may be addressed with a different research design (while not significantly changing the research questions), and with approximately the same resources as were used by the author(s). (NB: a design is different from the one used in the article if at least one, and possible several of ‘design elements’ (discussed in the slides of session 6) are different from the study reported in the article you discuss. Also discuss, in concise form, the strengths and weaknesses of this alternative design. This third part of your essay will generally comprise between 1200 and 2500 words.
Your report should discuss both weak and strong aspects of the selected article in relation to the four forms of validity distinguished. This involves identifying what the author does exceptionally well to strengthen the validity of her/his work, as well as what (s)he leaves unattended as potential threats to validity for this particular study. You have also to point out where in the article these good or poor aspects can be found (e.g., p.21, paragraph 3, etc.). In addition to identifying these good/poor aspects, you have to explicate why they matter for this particular study. You do not have to indicate what the ‘solution’ is for each of the problems you identify, but you have to indicate why that potential threat is relevant for the conclusions formulated in the article (keep in mind: not all the potential threats listed in SCC, KKV and in the slides are relevant for every study).
Please focus on major problems and explain clearly why they are problems for this study, what the threat is to which kind of validity, how the author has addressed the problem (if at all), and which conclusions are potentially affected by it. If you feel that there are no problems at all from the perspective of a particular kind of validity, you may state that as well, but please elaborate the grounds for that evaluation.
In the last part of your essay you have to address the same research questions as the author(s) do in the study you chose (and which you have already identified and summarised in the first part of your report). Your alternative design has to address the same research question(s), not other ones! Moreover, the alternative design should not require more resources than used by the authors of the article (in other words: it does not make sense to present an alternative design that would cost millions of pounds where the original study did clearly not require more than a few thousand; or a study that would require multiple collaborators for a long period where the original study was clearly done by a single person in a single year; etc.). Describe the design that you propose clearly, and also what the strengths and weaknesses of that design are for the various kinds of validity.
Please identify clearly through appropriate referencing and citation (APA, Harvard etc.) which publication you discuss, and other sources that you use. Please use the style of reference that is the standard in your school, and use it consistently.