Child Development Does exposure to code-switching influence language

Short Paper 2 follows the same guidelines as the short paper (or research critique) you wrote earlier.

Kaushanskaya & Crespo (2019)
. Does exposure to code-switching influence language development performance in bilingual children? Child Development, 90 (3), 708-718.

If you have any questions please ask. I’m happy to speak with you by phone but it is probably best to contact me by email to arrange a time. I am regularly in “my office” on Wednesday afternoon and early evening. You can send me an email and we can confirm a time. I’m happy to arrange a time to talk at another time– around dinner time is best.

Short Paper Guide

WRITING A RESEARCH CRITIQUE

Reading a Social Science Research Article

Make sure you have an empirical article. An empirical article includes an introduction, a method, results and a discussion or conclusion. (For each Short Paper in this class you will be given a choice of articles. All the articles are empirical articles).

Review the Abstract. The abstract is presented at the beginning of the article. This is a brief summary of the research to be reported. It includes the research questions, the methods used to collect data, and the results of the study. The abstract is a short summary of the research to be reported. It is not intended to be an introduction. It provides the reader with the gist of the study and the findings.

READ THE ARTICLE CAREFULLY

Read the Introduction. This is the first part of the article and it usually does not actually say “Introduction”. The introduction presents the problem being studied and the problem background. This usually includes a short summary of prior research if that is needed to understand the study being reported. Sometimes a theoretical framework is described. At the end of the introductory section the author should have presented the research question or the research problem and a statement about what is expected. Look for the author’s statements about expections, predictions and hypotheses. These are important and make sure you understand them.

Read the Method, This section of the article tells you what was done and how. You should be told about the research procedures. Who are the study participants? How and where was information collected? There are many different research methods but the concern here is the methods used in this study. For example, were surveys or questionnaires used? How were these presented? Were video or audio tape recordings made? What was taped? Was a laboratory procedure used? Sometimes procedural details including materials, tester scripts and questionnaires are included. The method should provide enough detail to “replicate” or to recreate the procedure. (If you can recreate the procedure, it will help you check your own understanding of what the authors are saying).

By the end of the method, you should be able to identify the major variables in the study and how these variables were (operationally) defined. The operational definition is a specification of how the construct or variable is actually “measured” in the study. For example, if the researchers are interested in children’s memory, what did they do to determine children’s memory? What was the task the children were asked to perform and how was children’s performance scored? (If you cannot do these things, don’t worry about it. Just try.)

Read the Results. This is usually the most technically challenging section of the research report. Sometimes it helps to skip ahead and skim the Discussion section of the article. Return to the Results after you have an idea about what to expect. The Results section presents the statistical analyses that led the researchers to their conclusions. The statistical analysis allows the researchers to discover relationships among the variables in the study and allows them to test their hypotheses.

You may recognize some of the terms and statistical procedures. You may be able to follow things and interpret tables, but don’t worry if you cannot.

Read the Discussion. While the Results is a report the findings without much interpretation, the Discussion section puts those results in a context. In this section, the authors will review the findings in relation to the questions and the hypotheses presented in the Introduction. The author will address the importance of the findings. It is important to understand the value of the research as described by the researchers. Look for what they say. You may not agree, but you should understand the author’s point of view.

Writing a Critique

Summarize the article (briefly) and comment. For this paper, the summary should be about 250 words. The critique or commentary should be about about 750 words. Be succinct. If you exceed the recommended length a bit, that’s OK. But, do not write more than 1250 words.

Here are some things to think about:

Do the authors explain why their problem is important? Does the problem seem to have any practical applications (beyond the realm of academia)? Is the problem important for the advancement of theory and research? Is a persuasive case presented for either or both?

Do the authors support their arguments about the importance of their problem with reference to other research? (References should be included at the end of the article.) Do those references include authors other than themselves? Do the references include any names you are familiar with?

Is it easy to figure out what the research question is? Do the authors go beyond the question to pose testable hypotheses? If they don’t offer hypotheses, do they explain why they cannot do so?

Comment on the Method. Was it readable? Does the procedure make sense to you? Is it highly abstract or is it “close to everyday life”?

Is there anything unusual about the way the research participants were identified? Are you given enough information about them? Does it seem as though there might be some type of bias? Most studies include some bias, so it is important to have the details about the study participants. These might include; age, gender, socioecomonic background, etc. If adequate information is not provided about the sample, or research participants, it is difficult to know how to generalize the findings.

What do you think about the measures? Do they make sense to you? Does this seem like an appropriate way to study children, or whoever? Explain.

Do the conclusions as presented by researchers seem reasonable?

Do you think someone else could replicate the study given the information provided?

Does the study seem to have any social or policy implications?

What did you like about the study? Did the researchers do something that seemed particularly clever or insightful?

If you did not like the study, explain why. What troubled you? What could, or should, have been done differently?

These questions are intended to help you think about the research report. You are not expected to address all of them in your paper.