UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH SUMMARIES:
Undergraduate students can fulfill the research requirement by reading educational or psychological research articles and writing critical summaries of the articles. (Research participation and article summaries can be combined to fulfill the research requirement.)
Directions:
1. Participation Requirement
To meet the research requirement you may read and write reviews of research articles. Each accepted article review counts as one hour toward your research requirement. (EPY 303 = 4 hours; EPY 451 = 3 hours)
2. Choosing an Article:
There are a number of articles on reserve in the Curriculum Materials Library (CML) in the College of Education Building (first floor) for you to review. You must review the articles that are on reserve. Make sure you review articles that are on the appropriate reserve list (i.e., if you are in 303, you must review articles that are on reserve for 303; if you are in 451, you must review articles that are on reserve for 451). Ask the library attendant for the "Research Requirement articles" for the appropriate class. The articles can not be checked out from the CML, but you may make copies.
3. Writing the Summary:
Answer the four article summary questions, which are taped inside the folder of articles for 303 or 451 on reserve at the Curriculum Materials Library. Carefully read the article and complete the four summary questions. Be sure to answer all parts of the question. Your aim should be to demonstrate that you have read and understood the article. The summaries are evaluated on a pass/no pass basis. Guidelines for the summary are included on this page.
4. Receiving Credit:
When you have completed a summary (make sure you have completed all four questions), submit it as an email attachment to the Experiment Management System Coordinator. BE SURE THAT YOUR DOCUMENT INCLUDES YOUR NAME AND THE NAME OF THE COURSE TO WHICH YOU WANT THE CREDIT TO BE APPLIED. Also, be sure to retain a copy of the summary for your records. You will be able to monitor the status of the summary (pass or no pass) through the Experiment Management System.
DEADLINE:
For the Fall 2009 term, submission of research article(s) must be completed by the last day of instruction (December 5, 2009).
GUIDELINES/HINTS FOR PREPARATION OF ACCEPTABLE SUMMARIES:
The reviewer should be able to look at your article summary and quickly see:
- 1. What did researchers want to find out?
- 2. How was the data collected? Who were the subjects? How many? What kind? How was data collected (what kind of tests or other measurement was used?).
- 3. What was learned (the results)?
- 4. What did you think about the article?
A person reading the article summary response that you submit should be able to tell what the article was about, who participated, how they participated, the results of the research, and your opinion about the article.
While great detail is not expected, sufficient detail requires a thorough reading of the article. As a reminder, the responses are graded on an 'Acceptable/Not-Acceptable' basis. If an article summary is not accepted, you can revise and re-submit.
Specific hints that will help you create an acceptable summary are:
- 1. Pay particular attention to the 'Purpose' or 'Present Study' areas of articles. Often a clear hypothesis/prediction can be found here. If you are having difficulty it is sometimes helpful to find the Method Section and go back one paragraph at a time until you see the Purpose and/or prediction statement. Furthermore, in the discussion section the prediction is often restated (e.g. 'as we predicted' or something similar).
- 2. When looking for information about the subject, measurement tools, and how they were used, the "Method" section is a good place to look. In particular, in the Method area you will usually find 'Participants', 'Measures', 'Procedures', or some variation of these. In these areas you will, most likely, find the number and types of subjects (participants) used, the types (methods) of tests that were used to measure, and how those tests (or measurement tools) were used to collect data (procedures). When you 'explain the study/experiment in your own words', someone who reads your explanation should be able to get a general idea about the study without reading the article.
- 3. When looking for the results, the 'Results' area is where you will find them. However, don't overlook the 'Discussion' area when looking for results. Often when they (the results) are being discussed they are spelled out in easy to understand terminology.
- 4. While quoting is sometimes a good thing, your understanding of the article is what we are interested in. Please use your own words when answering the questions.
Questions about the research requirement may be directed to the Experiment Management System Coordinator.