Research Articles Critique

As you learned in an earlier course, the skills involved in critiquing articles, writing a literature review that supports the existence of a dissertation-worthy

research problem, and proposing, designing, and doing research are all related. They have in common: knowledge of research design, validity concepts, and test

construction; use of logic in reasoning; and the ability to organize thinking. Reading well, critically, thoughtfully, and with purpose is fundamental to doing a

dissertation.

Education scholars must critique and evaluate research reports because truth, such as it is in education, is the result of a collective, critical process. You cannot

assess the state of knowledge in an area simply by collecting conclusions from research articles. A literature review is not simply a collection of reports of

conclusions from research articles, much less, an account of what others have done.
At this point in the program, you have been implicitly or explicitly introduced to a number of means of analyzing or interrogating research articles. “Interrogating”

is perhaps more useful, as it helps you see that you understand an article and evaluate a study by asking questions of it. The questions you ask depend on your purpose

in reading an article. A good question to ask yourself before reading an article is: What do I want to learn from reading this article?

As a novice researcher preparing to make a scientific contribution, you are obligated to critically analyze previous research and reach and defend your own conclusions

about what is known and not known in your area.
Contained within the Books and Resources area for this week, are resources related to approaches to reading and critiquing research articles that you can choose from

and mix and match as best fits you and your purposes. For general guidance on how to read academic works, see the Monash University site and the first three sections

of Little & Parker (2010).

Approaches to Critiquing Peer-Reviewed Research Articles
1. Meltzoff’s systematic approach (1998/2008, pp. 164-65). (Supplemental Resource)
2. Trochim and Donnelly’s (2008) (Supplemental Resource) definition of validity– “the best possible approximation of the truth of a given proposition, inference,

or conclusion” (p. 14). The definition serves as a simple, but excellent, evaluation tool. Researchers set events in motion and reached a conclusion about the events—

is the conclusion true, i.e., warranted? To answer this question, you need:
3. Critical reading and thinking skills. Research articles are in the end, arguments: a collection of propositions or sentences organized to support a conclusion.

To evaluate research articles, you need an array of critical thinking skills, such as those discussed and taught here:
1.    Critical Thinking Web Page
2.    Online Resources for Students in Philosophy
4.    Little & Parker (2010), How to Read a Scientific Paper Section 4.
5.    Creswell’s (2009; chapter 3) (Supplemental Resource) suggestions for modeling the variables in a study and the constructs in a theory combined with Trochim and

Donnelly’s (2008, pp. 61-62) (Supplemental Resource) neat little picture of the theory and observation levels as they relate to construct validity. Sometimes (maybe

all the time!) drawing a picture of the theoretical and observational levels of a study can help you see how the researchers understand their study at the theoretical

or conceptual level and how (and how well) they translated constructs into actions and observables and addressed possible confounds and sources of error. The diagram

can also simply help you understand how the constructs/variables are related or might be related. Such drawings can also help you to design your own study.
6. Northcentral’s requirements for the structure of a dissertation are outlined in the Doctoral Candidacy Resource Guide. This affords a set of set of valuable

questions: What is the problem the study addresses? What is the purpose of the research? Do the research questions serve the purpose of the study and address the

problem? Does the design answer the questions? And so forth.
7. Identify plausible threats to validity that a study did not address, using, for example, Trochim (2006) Introduction to Validity and Validity Typology and

Validity Threats.
8.    Blaxter, Hughes & Tight (2006) (Supplemental Resource). Chapter 4, Reading for Research, “Good Enough Reading”: pp. 113-118.
9.    The Step by Step Guides to Critiquing Research – Quantitative and Qualitative
10.    Everything you learned in all of your research courses! Your learning sums to having the skills to determine if the design of a research study yielded findings

that address a research problem and answers research questions “in a convincing way” (de Vaus, 2001, p. 9).
These approaches to critiquing research are heuristics, guides. They overlap in many ways, which doesn’t matter. What matters is that you pick and choose from among

them to have a set of tools that you can use to analyze research articles and think clearly about your research.
Assignment Preparation
1.    Please review all Books and Resources for this week.
2.    Use the Northcentral University Library and or other resources you may find helpful to research more detail regarding this week’s topic.
3.    Review APA Form and Style.

PART 1:
For this assignment, as a practice you will give articles “the whole megillah” and understand and evaluate all of the decisions, assumptions, and arguments the

researchers made—you will put together your own complete set of questions to use in interrogating research articles.
Review the resources mentioned for this week and put together a list of questions and strategies you will use to critically read research articles for your

dissertation.
Length: 1-2 pages not including title and reference pages.

Your paper should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts that are presented in the course and provide new thoughts and insights relating

directly to this topic. Your paper should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards. Review APA Form and Style.

Be sure to adhere to the University’s Academic Integrity Policy.

PART 2

Apply the list of questions and strategies you developed in the previous assignment to two articles describing research that contributes to theory in your topic area.

Choose short articles (fewer than 10 pages) if possible. Submit your analysis of both articles in a single brief paper. Send your faculty member the articles or links

to them. You may organize the paper simply as answers to your Part I questions. Follow APA style only for the reference list.
Length: 3-5 pages not including title and reference pages.

Your paper should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts that are presented in the course and provide new thoughts and insights relating

directly to this topic. Your paper should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards. Review APA Form and Style.

Be sure to adhere to the University’s Academic Integrity Policy.

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