TPSYCH 400: Report #1
In this report, you’ll be asked to choose a topic within the field of psychology of women and gender that interests you, and then use UWT library databases (for this class use PsychINFO) to find an empirical study relevant to your topic reported in a professional, peer reviewed journal. You’ll then need to read the article, and evaluate it according to the questions (3- 6) listed below. Type your answers directly into this assignment under each question. In this sense, it is not a “paper” per se, but I do expect your answers to be “paper quality.”
This must be a peer-reviewed article that is a primary research report. A quick way to assess this is to make sure it has a methods and results section.
NOTE: This report is designed to be stage 1 of your final research proposal.
- What is your main topic of interest?
- What are the general questions and issues that you are interested in investigating, and what are your hypotheses regarding these questions (generally)?
- Write the reference for your chosen article in APA style (see http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/06 and the APA PowerPoint provided on Canvas).
- Summarize the article. In your summary you should include the goals of the research, an overview of the methods used to answer the researchers’ questions, and perhaps most importantly, a summary of the results.
- In the article you summarized above, how did the researcher(s) interpret the results? In other words, what does this mean? What are the implications of this work? Can you think of alternative interpretations?
- Discuss a good follow-up to the study you reviewed. To answer this, you might think about what
questions remain unanswered, or what interesting new directions might be suggested by the findings. This
question is meant to help you brainstorm what you would like to do for your final research proposal.
Note that at this point you would have likely read several articles on your topic of interest. For this last
question, you may bring in a summary of some of these as well if it is relevant. For example, perhaps you
plan to combine to programs of research into a new study idea. Or maybe there is a secondary article that is
informing your work as much as the article you review here. The more “work” you do on this question, the
better I can help guide you.
Your paper/answers to the questions should be 2-3ish pages (double-spaced) in length. You may answer the questions directly in this worksheet (i.e., under each question). Be sure to be concise and clear. Please also provide a full pdf. copy of your article—not just the abstract–with your paper (attach as a separate attachment). I will be happy to consult with you on the suitability of your article ahead of time—select your article early and run it by me if you’d like!