Scientific Reading Assignment
Instructions:
You can choose any of the three articles (below) to read and answer questions about. As you read, keep in mind what you think is good about these and what you’d do differently. I don’t expect for you to know all of the details of how the results and statistics are calculated, but if there are parts that confuse you, feel free to ask me to explain that to you. Every study will have some limitations to it, but some will have more than others. The goal of this is for you to think critically about research. For some papers, there may be more than one study. If your paper has multiple studies, you only have to answer questions about the first study. However, I recommend reading the whole paper regardless. The questions you answer will be on the next page. For more assistance, an example is posted to Canvas.
Articles:
Pick one of these articles.
Dietze, P., & Knowles, E. D. (2021). Social Class Predicts Emotion Perception and Perspective-Taking Performance in Adults. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 47(1), 42–56.
Valor-Segura, I., Expósito, F., Moya, M., & Kluwer, E. (2014). Don’t leave me: The effect of dependency and emotions in relationship conflict. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 44, 579-587. doi:
Gunraj, D. N., Drumm-Hewitt, A. M., Dashow, E. M., Upadhyay, S. S. N., & Klin, C. M. (2016). Texting insincerely: The role of the period in text messaging. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 1067–1075.
Note:
Scientific Reading Assignment
Instructions: This assignment is designed to help you practice reading empirical articles. This will help you when writing your final paper and in future research and classes. There are three articles posted to Blackboard for you to choose from. Pick the one that interests you most then answer the following questions. While these don’t have to be answered in paragraphs, please answer each question in complete sentences. Questions have multiple parts, and it is important that you answer every question. For papers with multiple studies, use only the first study to answer questions 3-7.
1. What are the main hypotheses being tested? What is it that the author is trying to find out? (10 points)
2. Give some examples of the rationale for the study in your own words. What previous studies have been done that support the hypothesis? (10 points)
3. Describe the participants in this study. Where were they recruited? How many are there? What characteristics are used for inclusion/exclusion criteria? Do you think this is representative of the population they are trying to study? Why or why not? (5 points)
4. What sorts of materials are used in testing the hypotheses? Describe the scales and other measurements that are taken. (5 points)
5. Explain the procedure used in this study. Is this a survey, experiment, longitudinal study, etc.? Are there any interventions used? Essentially, what happens to the participant in the study? (5 points)
6. With the understanding that you may not understand all of the statistics that go into this, do your best job at explaining the results of the study. Do they support the hypotheses? (5 points)
7. What does the author conclude regarding this study? (10 points)
8. What are some strengths and limitations of the paper? Give examples from the paper along with some of your own thoughts. (10 points)
9. Give some future directions for this research. What questions do you have for other studies? (10 points)
10. What are your overall thoughts about this paper? Do you think the design of the study was good for what it was testing? Is there something you’d do differently? (10 points)
Summary: For the summary, include what you think is important information from the questions above. The summary should be 200-300 words, and if someone read it, they should be able to understand what the study was and what it was about. (20 points)
