PSYC 300: Life-Span Developmental Psychology (Birkhill)

Reading scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles is a skill that you develop. Journal articles (particularly research articles) are organized in a way that facilitates a more selective reading process, i.e. skimming and/or reading sections in a different order. 

There is no single way to correctly read a journal article. Ask your professors - they'll each have their own way of breaking down and reading articles, both within and outside of their field. Below are resources and guidelines to help you:

• How to Read and Get the Most out of Journal Articles, by the Journal of European Psychology Students (JEPS), which describes the Three Pass Approach to reading and understanding psychology journal articles 
• Anatomy of a Journal Article: dissects and describes each section of academic journal articles, by the American Psychological Association (APA)

How Are Empirical Articles Different From Review Articles?

Empirical articles report new, original data to answer a research question. Review articles, including Meta-Analyses and Systematic Reviews, synthesize and analyze data from different studies about a research topic to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing research evidence about the topic. 

• Anatomy of a Scholarly Journal Article (Empirical Articles): dissects and describes each section of scholarly journal articles that are about empirical research studies (these can be quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods)
• Anatomy of a Systematic Review/Meta-Analysis (Review Articles) describes each section of scholarly journal articles that are about systematic review and meta-analysis studies
• Introduction To Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: describes what review articles are, why and when to use them, and how they're structured

What Is The Difference Between Quantitative and Qualitative Research?

• Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences: describes the characteristics of qualitative research studies and quantitative research studies, and the differences between them

When you're reading empirical articles:

1. Critically evaluate the theoretical positions being advanced
2. Critically evaluate the adequacy of the methods and data to address the position being advanced
3. Examine what has previously been found in studies about your topic
4. Examine how your topic fits into this literature and how it helps answer your research questions

When you're critiquing journal articles, look for key information like:

1. What are the main hypotheses?
2. Why is this research important?
3. What are the theoretical perspectives of the authors?
4. What is the sample size?
5. Were the research measures and procedures appropriate for studying the stated hypothesis?
6. What were the key research findings?
7. Are the authors' conclusions supported by the data? Why or why not?
8. Did the authors show any bias?