Article : When Facebook is easier than face-to-face: Social support derived from Facebook in socially anxious individuals By Michaelle Indian, Rachel Grieve

ARTICLE REVIEW ASSIGNMENTS

The purpose of this assignment is to get you comfortable with reading and understanding scientific research articles. I have selected a few articles for you to choose from. These are the ONLY articles that you may use for this assignment. Select ONE of the approved articles to review. I have included the articles as attachments with the assignment.

Read the article through once, to get the idea of what it is about. Then read it again, keeping in mind the review sections described below. Article reviews should be typed in 12pt Times New Roman Font, single-spaced. Your review should be between 2-3 pages. Each section should be clearly labeled as below and must be in outline format (follow this handout). Be sure to proofread for spelling and grammar.

Also, you must paraphrase the information when writing your review, meaning that the information must be stated in your own words. This shows that you really understand the article that you are reviewing. If you take wording directly from the article, you will not receive full credit.

You will need to complete two article reviews during this semester. Each article review is worth 30 points, for a total of 60 points in the semester.

Your review needs to include the following sections:

Reference

Make an APA style reference for the article you selected. This means that you will take the following information from the article and put it in the correct format. Do NOT copy the entire reference section.

Authorlastname, Firstinitial. (year of publication). Title of journal article. Journal Title, volume#, pg#-pg#.

Study Design

For this portion of the article review, you need to specify what type of study was conducted.

a. State the type of study (correlational, experimental, longitudinal, etc).

b. Also include a brief overview of the purpose of the study (why did they do it).

Variables

Independent variables are things like the conditions participants are assigned to in an experimental study (ex: amount of time watching violent TV); predictor variables are the things the researchers use to predict an outcome but that can't necessarily be manipulated (ex: self-esteem or education level) and are in a correlational or longitudinal study.

Dependent or criterion variables are outcome variables; the term "dependent variable" refers specifically to outcomes in experimental studies whereas the term "criterion variable" refers to outcomes in correlational studies.

a. Specify whether it was an independent/predictor variable and/or a dependent/criterion variable in the study (correct labels).

b. Identify the independent/predictor and dependent/criterion variables in the study (name them).

Operational Definitions of Variables

Operational definitions tell how the variable is manipulated, measured, or assessed in the study. These involve defining any terms or concepts that are central variables in the study.

When trying to figure out the operational definition of the independent variable, think about how the variable was manipulated (what did the researchers DO to the variable?).

When trying to figure out the operational definition of the dependent, predictor, or criterion variables, think about how the variable was measured (what did the researchers USE for the variable?).

For example, if in the article you reviewed, stereotype threat was a predictor variable, it would be one term you would need to provide an operational definition for.

a. Operational definition of independent/predictor variable(s)

b. Operational definition of dependent/criterion variable(s)

Hypotheses

What did the researchers predict? What did they expect to happen? All studies have at least 1 hypothesis, and many have quite a few more than that. Remember that the study hypothesis will involve predictions about the variables.

a. Identify the hypotheses for the study.

Results

What are the main findings? You should have at least 1 result for each hypothesis. You also need to indicate whether the result supports or disconfirms a hypothesis.

a. What were the results/main findings?

b. Do the results support, partially support, or refute the hypotheses?

Conclusions

A good place to look for conclusions is in the discussion section, usually toward the end of the article.

a. Interpretation of the results: What do these results mean in a broader sense? (In other words, what do the findings mean in the big picture? What do they imply about life in the real world?)

b. Briefly describe future directions for the line of research studied in the article.

Critique

Typically researchers acknowledge limitations to their own work (in the discussion section), but there may be some things that you notice that could be a problem for the study.

Limitations typically deal with two things: problems with what was done in the study and problems with the ability to generalize the results. For example, were the participants mostly women (so we don't know if men would respond the same way)?

a. What are some of the limitations of the study identified by the researcher(s)? What could the researchers have done that would have made the study better?

b. What limitations did you find with the study? Identify and describe at least 2 limitations that are not mentioned by the researchers. Be sure to explain why these are limitations. How could they have affected the results or generalization?