Description
A 1,000 word critical evaluation of a story in the news pertaining to developmental psychology plus an attached self-assessment (attached)
a) Read and summarise the original research study that is discussed in the news coverage; to help you gain a good understanding of the study, remember to summarise the study’s research questions and why these matter, its methods (e.g., participants, study design, measures etc.), key discussion points, and any limitations and conclusions.
b) Place the research study in the broader context of relevant research and theory and provide a critical discussion. You might want to consider, for example, whether other studies have tried to address the same question and whether the findings of those studies are consistent with the chosen piece of research that received coverage.
c) Summarise the original news coverage
d) Provide your evaluation of the news coverage – think about whether the questions, methods, and results are accurately described and reported. Some issues you may want to think about are: Did the news coverage appropriately portray and interpret the findings? Were cautions about, and/or limitations of, the research highlighted? Were the authors cited/quoted? Were the findings exaggerated, or were specific findings left out of the media coverage? Was the media coverage biased? Did the media coverage link directly to the original research?
e) Write a coherent conclusion: Taking all the presented information together, (e.g., your own summary and evaluation of the original research paper, and its relevance in the context of the broader theoretical/empirical literature, your evaluation of the media coverage) what is your appraisal of the media coverage and what are the implications (e.g. How does your review matter? What have we learned? Should things be done differently in the future? How? Or are there examples of ‘good practice’? Which?)
f) Remember that a critical evaluation does not need to be an exercise where only limitations are highlighted. Both strengths and limitations are important if they exist. This is relevant for your evaluation of both the media coverage and original research. In all your statements, it is important to justify your argument for either case. The media may well have done a very good job summarizing and reporting the research. It may be that the original research itself was not very well done and has some significant limitations.
