Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to provide you with the opportunity to learn more about a specific area of interest within child development by having you select, read, and critically comment on aprimary-source research article.Topic: You must select an appropriate research article (see below for details) on any topic covered in class or raised in the textbook, with the caveat that it must include research involving human children.If your article is not about research with human children, your paper will receive a score of zero.Length: Between 800 – 950 words (not including the reference page, the title page, or the abstract of the article you’ve chosen). This word count does include in text citations. Assignments that are too short, or too long, will lose marks. Make sure to include a word count on the cover page. While this is not a long paper, it does require some time and careful consideration to do well. Plan accordingly.Your submitted Critical Review Paper must include:(a) a cover page with your name, the course code, my name, the word count (including everything from the first word of the introduction to the last word of the discussion, not including the reference page, the title page, or the abstract of the selected article), and the title of your topic;(b) a brief introduction to the topic that contextualizes it (explains the significance of the topic, situates it within the area of child development, defines the main terms, etc.);(c) a brief introduction to your selected article that makes clear the study’s goals and defines any additional key terms;(d) a concise summary of your chosen article (this includes information about the participants, the method, the findings, and the author(s)’ interpretation);(e) a critical commentary on your research article clearly describing 1 or 2 critical comments about aspects that you have noticed yourself (i.e., don’t report limitations that the author(s) raised in the article), keeping in mind that critical can include both negative and positive aspects, and makingsure to include justifications;(f) a reference page listing all cited sources; and(g) the abstract of your selected article (cutting and pasting is fine, as is a screen shot of the abstract)– the abstract is not included in the word count of your assignment.The paper must be in current APA format (see link posted on Brightspace for a summary of APA style guidelines). Make sure to include: page numbers, in-text citations, and references. You may use subheadings if you wish (make sure they are in APA format), but keep in mind that sub-headings are not asubstitute for a clear structure and good transitions between sections. Runningheads are optional.SOME GUIDELINES TO KEEP IN MIND:1) Use VERY few quotes (ideally none, but if necessary, use one or two short quotes, making sure to cite them properly).2) Don’t report the statistics – report results in meaningful sentences (especially if you don’t understand them). For example, instead of reporting mean scores and t-values, report something like, “While the 6-year-olds performed significantly better on the single-addition task than did the 4-year-olds, there was no difference between the 6- and 5-year-olds on this measure.”. Typically, the beginning of an article’s discussion section will report the main findings clearly.3) Do not write article summaries with too much detail – you should be writing a summary such that when we read it, it is clear to us that you understand: (a) what question(as) the researchers wanted to answer; (b) who participated; (c) what the participants did; (d) what the researchers found; and (e)what the researchers interpret the results to mean. You should not present enough detail to replicate the study.4) Report the dependent variable – spell it out (e.g., “Researchers measured …”)5) Do not need to mention that participants didn’t know about the purpose of the study unless you have reason to think otherwise (i.e., a concern).6) Make your critical comments about meaningful aspects of the study. For example, were the tasks selected problematic in some way? Were there reasons to be concerned about the generalizability of the findings? Were there aspects of the study that were particularly well done? In all cases, justify/explain your critical comments.p.s. Please read more details from instructions which I uploaded in Files carefully. Thank you!
