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Guidelines for Article Review Assignment

1. Overview
For this assignment you will select an article that reports on a qualitative or quantitative study
and write a review of that article. The primary purpose of this assignment is to help you develop
critical review of research understanding so that you can read published research reports with a
critical view.
2. Requirements
This assignment has three main parts:
(1) selecting an appropriate article for review;
(2) writing a review according to the guidelines described below;
Each of these requirements is discussed in detail on this page.
3. Selecting an Appropriate Article.

The article you select for this assignment should be related to the research question or problem
that you are exploring in this course. Ideally, this same article will be part of the literature review
you write for your final project in the course. In addition, the article you select should be an
example of qualitative and quantitative research that meets the following specifications:

It should be published in an established journal (or book) in your area of educational


inquiry.
It should be current--published within the past 5-8 years. (However, important studies
that were published more than ten years ago are acceptable.)
It should be relevant to the question or problem you are exploring for your final project.

In selecting your article, please be sure it is a report of a qualitative and quantitative study and
not a philosophical or theoretical discussion of an issue related to your chosen topic or to
qualitative research in general. That means that the article you select for this assignment should
describe a qualitative and quantitative study and should include, in some form, a discussion of
the research problem or question and the methods of data collection and analysis. Obviously, in
order to meet these specifications, you should become familiar with some of the major journals
and with some of the most important studies and researchers in the area you are exploring.

4. Writing the Review.

Your review of your selected article should be a concise, thoughtful discussion of the main
features of the study described in the article and of important questions that the study might raise
for qualitative researchers. Your review should have four main parts:
1. A brief overview of the study in which you succinctly describe the study and its
relationship to important issues, trends, or questions in the area of educational research
you are exploring.
2. A description of the methodology of the study, including the research question; the
subjects, population, setting, or activity being studied and how they were selected; the
methods of data collection and analysis; and the results. This section should also include
discussion of the major assumptions or theoretical perspective(s) informing the study
design.
3. An evaluation of the study in which you discuss whether the design of the study
adequately addresses the problem or question being addressed by the researcher(s) and in
which you identify aspects of the study that are especially effective or problematic. Your
evaluation should be guided by the following questions:
o Does the author adequately establish the significance of the research question(s)?
o Are the methods of data collection and analysis appropriate to the research
question(s)?
o Are the study's conclusions reasonable, given the methods of data collection and
analysis?
o Are there any significant methodological weaknesses in the study?
o Do you see any ethical concerns with this study?
4. A discussion of implications of what you learned from this study regarding research
methodology and educational research in general.
Keep in mind that the primary goal of your review is not to judge whether the study was good or
bad but to examine it carefully in order to understand better the complexities of educational
research.
5. Submission Guidelines
Your written review should be approximately 1000-1200 words. Your writing need not be strictly
technical or overly formal, but keep in mind that this is an academic assignment that should
follow the general conventions of academic writing. Moreover, your writing should be clear,
accurate, and relatively error-free.

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