Instructions

Quantitative Research Article Analysis

The goal of this assignment is to select a research article that utilizes quantitative methods and analyze the quality of scholarly information it contains.

This assignment will allow you the opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of quantitative research methods. You will be summarizing and critiquing the research questions, methods, results, and conclusions of your article selection.

Course Objectives: CO 1, CO 2, CO4

Description:

In weeks two and three, we've explored quantitative methods in communication research. In your lessons, Raff (2018) provides some excellent tips for reading and understanding a scientific article. Let's put these tips into action!

For this week's assignment, you will first locate a research article that has been published in a refereed communication journal, such as Human Communication Research, Journal of Applied Communication, Journal of Communication, or Communication Monographs. You are not limited to these journals, this list is simply examples of peer-reviewed journals in communication. There are a wide variety of peer-reviewed journals available in the APUS library. When in doubt, feel free to ask your instructor!

Please select an article published within the last five years. Please do NOT select an article that does not use quantitative methods in communication research (for example, an article studying biology would not work in this class; an article on health communication and biology is fine).

In your assignment, you must answer the following questions:

• In 3-5 sentences, summarize what the article is about.
• What theory or theories are used by the author(s)?
  • How does the theory chosen guide the research?
  • If there is not a clear theory used in the research, can you think of one that could have been applied to the research project?
  • What is the value of the literature review in this article?
• Identify the research questions.
• What is the research design/methodology?
• Who are the research participants?
  • How were they chosen for the project?
  • Were they the appropriate population to study?
• What questions have been answered?
  • For example, what do you know now that you didn't know before reading this study?
  • What new questions were raised?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?
• What is your overall evaluation of the article? The good, the bad, the ugly.

Submission Guidelines

• Your paper must be 3-5 pages in length and follow APA style guidelines.
• Please see the attached rubric for grading guidelines.
• Remember essays should include an introductory paragraph(state thesis and engage audience attention) and a concluding paragraph (recap main ideas and wrap up statement(s)).
• word count does not matter
• I intend to submit tutors work as my own
• citation will be the article