The purpose of this assignment is to conduct a review of the literature that currently exists on the research topic you have chosen for the semester. This review must include at least four research articles from peer-reviewed journals that pertain to your topic. Articles should be published within the last five years and never more than 10 years old. Research studies should always be referred to in the past tense as they have already been completed. You will likely need to supplement your literature review with additional materials (i.e., other journal articles on your topic). This assignment also provides you an opportunity to continue mastering your use of the American Psychological Association (APA) publication guidelines for proper citation of sources.
Part 1-
Article Summaries Breakdown:
For four of the research articles you are using in your literature review, you will complete a summary that requires you to summarize in your own words the most important parts of the articles. Make sure the research articles you are using are full-length articles and not just abstracts. If a required item for the summary is not stated in the journal article, state this in your summary (but double-check this to make sure you are right). Your marked-up journal articles must be turned in along with your summaries.
For each of the journal articles, write a 3 paragraph summary that details the following information below. Head each article summary with the APA citation for that article.
Required information:
a. Give an overall summary of each article and state the purpose of the journal article (i.e., objective, or research question)
b. What type of research design was used? (i.e., qualitative, quantitative, survey, evaluative, single-subject)
c. Identify/name the variables within the article.
d. How were the variables measured?
e. Date data were collected (should not be more than 10 years previous)
f. What type of sampling method did the authors use? From what group did they get their sample? How many people participated in the study? What type of people were they?
g. What were the study’s findings?
h. What were the study problems or limitations? What did you see? Which ones did the authors mention?
Formatting requirements: for part 1
● Your paper should be double-spaced, in a 12-point size, using Times New Roman font with pages numbered.
Part 2 –
In this section, you should synthesize and evaluate the information you have gained from reading within the four journal articles you chose above. You can supplement research with additional peer-reviewed research articles as well. Articles should be published within the last five years and never more than 10 years old. Research studies should always be referred to in the past tense as they have already been completed.
Basic outline for the Research Study literature review:
● Introduction to the topic (about two paragraphs in length) based on your 4 articles you have chosen
● What is the area of interest?
● Describe the scope of the problem or main issue (i.e., How many individuals are affected by the problem?).
● Why is this an important problem to study?
● Summarize and integrate the knowledge in these 4 studies. Is there general agreement among the authors of these journal articles? If there is disagreement, what were some possible reasons for this? Where is the research on your topic weak? What is still unknown about your topic; how does this lead to your overall proposed study surrounding your topic?
Formatting requirements: for part 2
● Your paper should be double-spaced, in a 12-point size, using Times New Roman font with pages numbered. Your paper should be 1,000 – 1,750 words in length, excluding your reference page and title page.
● Follow the American Psychological Association (APA) publication guidelines (7th edition) for this assignment. Using the APA publication guide, include a reference page for all of the journal articles used in your literature review.
● Points will be deducted for citation, punctuation, spelling, or grammatical errors.
