Journal Article Assignment
Your task is to locate a research report (not a theoretical review, letter to the editor, opinion paper, etc.) in one of the professional journals from the field of psychology, read enough of the report to answer the questions listed below. Research reports are the published primary sources reports by investigators explaining why they did their study, how they did their study, what’s they found, what they conclude, and what they intend to do in the future. A research report can usually be recognized by clearly labeled Method, Results and Discussion sections within the body of the paper. Research has to be conducted on a group of human participants. Look through the journal for an interesting research report that you can make sense of. You may have to look at several issues to find one you like. Attach the first page of the article (research report with a Methods section) (2 pts.) This should include the author, title of article, and publication source. Read through the article, paying particular attention to the Method section, so
that you can answer the remaining questions.
1) Attach the first page of the article (2 pts.)
2) What were the researchers interested in? What was their hypothesis or what research question were they trying to answer? (16 pts.)
3) What problem is the article trying to solve? What questions does it hope to answer? (12 pts.)
4) Who were the participants in this study (how many, what were their characteristics)? (8 pts.)
5) How was the research conducted? (describe what they did) (16 pts.)
6) Does this research fit one of the basic research methods we discussed (naturalistic
observation, survey/questionnaire, case study of single individual, experiment, correlational research? Which? Why do you think so? (16 pts.)
7) What did the researchers find? What were their conclusions? (12 pts.)
8) What were the major conclusions drawn at the end of the article? (12 pts.)
9) Do you feel this research experiment was successful or effective in finding information that can be useful to society? (4 pts.)
* Beware of plagiarism – write your answers in your own words, not those of the authors or those of a friend also doing this assignment.
This assignment must be typed using a word processing program. The paper must include a title page and a works cited page utilizing the APA format. The minimum is 2 pages not including the title page or references page. The paper should be double spaced using 12 pt. font only and black ink on white paper. Please use spellcheck before printing and staple your paper in the left hand
corner.
