Assignment: Analysis of Research Article

Analysis of Research Paper

Purpose:  The objective of this assignment is to give you practice in critically evaluating a scientific research paper.  As this skill improves, you will be able to:

• Determine if a given paper is relevant to your needs (does it provide the kind of information you are looking for?)
• Distinguish the paper’s major components
• Understand (at least in a general sense) the paper’s findings

Instructions for Assignment:

Read the article A Prospective Study of Diet Quality and Mental Health in Adolescents.

Here’s the URL in case the link does not work.     https://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0024805 (Links to an external site.)

• Write your analysis of the article
• Submit your analysis on Canvas before due date

The following questions are provided to help you formulate your analysis of the article. Please do not copy and paste these questions into a new document with your answers simply inserted between the questions. You need to write a minimum of three paragraphs in complete sentences with transitions between sections to create a cohesive analysis. This analysis should address all four sections of the assigned article. Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. The BTC tutoring center is free and has a writing center which is a great resource paid for in part by your tuition.

Introduction:

What is the overall purpose of the research?

How does the research fit into the context of its field? Is it, for example, attempting to settle a controversy? Show the validity of a new technique? Open up a new field of inquiry? Provide additional data to support previous research?

Do you agree with the author’s rationale for studying the question in this way?

Methods:

Were the measurements appropriate for the questions the researcher was approaching?

Often, researchers need to use “indicators” because they cannot measure something directly–for example, using babies’ birth weight to indicate nutritional status. Were the measures in this research clearly related to the variables in which the researchers (or you) were interested?

If human subjects were studied, do they fairly represent the populations under study?

Results:

What is the one major finding?

Were enough of the data presented so that you feel you can judge for yourself how the experiment turned out?

Did you see patterns or trends in the data that the author did not mention? Were there problems that were not addressed?

Discussion:

Do you agree with the conclusions drawn from the data?

Are these conclusions over-generalized or appropriately careful?

Are there other factors that could have influenced, or accounted for, the results?

What further experiments would you think of, to continue the research or to answer remaining questions?

I strongly encourage you to look at the grading rubric before you begin reading the article and again before you submit your analysis. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you have about this assignme