Hom3

Quiz Instructions
Instructions: Later in the semester, and throughout your time as a psychology major and beyond, you will need to summarize and critique research articles. Before you can do that, you need to learn to read empirical research articles. You may be thinking “I already know how to read!”, but reading a research article is a little different than reading a textbook or news article. When you read a scientific article, your goal is to understand scientific contributions that authors made, specifically in psychology, hypotheses, research design, participants, methodology, results, and conclusion. This is a complex task – you may go over the article several times and spend hours on it. Research articles are written in a format that may not be intuitive or easy to understand at first. It will get easier with practice!
Here are some general guidelines for you to read a research article:

• Remember the structure of a psychological article, and how each section is different: Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, References, Appendix.

• Skim the article: Briefly skimming the materials can help you be familiar with the topic and information included in the article. With the anticipation of article structure and topic, you will read the article more efficiently and comprehend more later on.

• Take notes as you read the article: Next, you should carefully read through each section and make notes. Write down any questions or criticisms so you do not forget them. Underline key points/definitions, mark down important data and results, go back the start and look up the information that you missed, and discuss with your group. Such efforts can help you the first time you read an article.

• Identify key information: Here are the key pieces of information to look for:
  • What are the main hypotheses?
  • What is/are independent variable(s)? What is/are dependent variable(s)?
  • How did researchers recruit their participants? Identify participants’ demographic information and data collection procedure.
  • What materials did researchers utilize to measure the hypotheses? Identify the apparatus and measurements.
  • What are the key findings/results of the study?
  • Do the findings justify authors’ conclusions?

• Next semester, you will also have to: Note the other sources that the paper cited in the introduction and discussion sections (you can skip this step for current discussion assignment): References section may be ignored but it is actually one of the most important parts in an article, especially when you are looking for references/sources for your own further studies. Spending some time to review it can find some research articles/topics in which you are interested. You will learn all about this in Methods II!

For this assignment, I have chosen a research article for you to read. Read the article posted below and answer the following questions. 
Article:  Saving the Last for Best- A Positivity Bias for End Experiences.pdf
 
Always save a copy of your responses to the individual assignments before you submit them (either by taking a picture of your answers or by copying and pasting your answers into a word document). You will need them for you discussion assignment and you will not always have access to your responses after you submit them. 
1.What design did this study use? (Experimental or Correlational). Explain how you know (this should be fairly apparent from the title of the article, so please also explain why this is an experimental study).

2. What is/are independent variable(s)? (Specify the levels). Note: there may be more than one IV, or there may be just one. Try to spot them all!
3. What is/are dependent variable(s)? (List all dependent variables authors measured)
4. How many participants in the study? What methods (e.g., survey, computer, equipment, etc.) did authors utilize to measure variables? How did they manipulate the IV?
5. What are the findings of the study?

Now I want you to convey your understanding of a research article. Here are the requirements for your writing for questions 6 and 7:

250. Write no more than 10 sentences, the max word count is 250.
251. In-text citation and direct quotes are not needed (we will learn how to do that next week!). 
252. You cannot directly copy and paste the sentences/phrases from the original article. You must use your own words (paraphrase) to summarize. Each student’s writing should and must be different even for group members in the same group. Copying and pasting from any outside source is regarded as plagiarism behavior.
253. Font: Times New Roman; Font size: 12. 
254. Write one paragraph to summarize and paraphrase a) the design the authors used for their project, b) identify the independent and dependent variables, c) talk about how the authors carried out their study (the methods), and then d) summarize the results. Make sure to follow above-mentioned requirements.

Don’t forget to save a copy of your response to this question before you submit your assignment! You’ll need it for the discussion assignment this week!

7. Were there any confounds in the study?  Explain why or why not, and explain how you think this confound might have influenced the results of the study.