Expanded comparison matrix
Order Instructions:
1) Introduction
a) Capture the reader’s interest, provide context for the paper, and include a clear thesis statement
2) Purposes of the Articles
a) Article 1 purpose
b) Article 2 purpose
c) Article 3 purpose
d) Commonalities/shared themes between articles
e) Why is that interesting or important?
3) Research Questions
a) Article 1 research questions/hypotheses
b) Article 2 research questions/hypotheses
c) Article 3 research questions/hypotheses
d) Commonalities/shared themes between articles
e) Things to address in this section of the paper: What are the research questions and hypotheses asked by the authors? How do they compare to one another? Why might the differences and similarities be important?
4) Literature Reviews
a) Article 1 themes
b) Article 2 themes
c) Article 3 themes
d) Commonalities/shared themes between articles
e) Conclusions I can draw from the shared themes
f) Things to address in this section of the paper: What are the main themes of each article’s lit review? What do they share in common? What conclusions can you draw from that?
5) Research Participants
a) Article 1 sample
b) Article 2 sample
c) Article 3 sample
d) Commonalities/shared themes between articles
e) Things to address in this section of the paper: Who participated in this study? What is important about the participants? What do the articles have in common?
6) Limitations
a) Article 1 limitations
b) Article 2 limitations
c) Article 3 limitations
d) Commonalities/shared themes between articles
e) Things to address in this section of the paper: What limitations exist in this article? Consider issues with sample, generalizability of results, biases of researchers, etc.
7) Results/Conclusions
a) Article 1 results/conclusions
b) Article 2 results/conclusions
c) Article 3 results/conclusions
d) Commonalities/shared themes between articles
e) Things to address in this section of the paper: What are the results of the studies? What conclusions did the authors draw? What commonalities do you see between articles? Why might that be important? What might that mean?
8) Conclusion
a) What is your conclusion? If you consider all three articles to be a single entity, what conclusions can you draw from their combined research? What is the overall message of the articles? Why is this important? What suggestions might you have for future research, or practical application of this information
SAMPLE ANSWER
1) Introduction
Expanded comparison matrix is undoubtedly the widely used and the most important tool that is used to compare contents of different articles, especially the peer reviewed journal articles on a particular subject. The context of this paper is comparing socialization or networking in higher education. As a result, this paper compares all sections of the three considered articles in order to establish an appropriate comparison matrix.
The three articles considered in this comparison matrix are: Baker & Lattuca (2010); Visser, Visser & Schlosser (2003); and Weidman & Stein (2003) as article 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
2) Purposes of the Articles
- a) Article 1: The purpose of this article is to examine how doctorate graduate students are prepared for academic careers, particularly focusing on their academic professional identity development.
- b) Article 2: The purpose of this article is to assess current teaching practices and investigate the critical thinking knowledge among faculty, whilst undertaking the identification of exemplary practices in critical thinking teaching.
- c) Article 3: The purpose of this article is to study how doctoral students socialize to the academic norms of scholarship and research.
- d) The commonalities between the purposes of the considered articles is that they all target students at doctoral level in education, particularly with regards to socialization and networking.
- e) The importance of the commonalities is that they allow easy comparison of the obtained results.
3) Research Questions/Hypotheses
- a) Article 1: This article hypothesize that there is connection between developmental networks of doctoral students, their graduate experience learning and professional identity development.
- b) Article 2: The research question in this article is that, are instructors and students (as lifelong learners and as reflective practitioners) helping our students to become critical thinkers?
- c) Article 3: The research question of this article is that, how do doctoral students’ socialize to academic norms of scholarship and research?
- d) The commonalities between the purposes of the considered articles is that, they all seek to establish a particular aspect of doctoral students’ socialization.
- e) The similarities enable the researcher to compare and contrast the study results.
4) Literature Reviews
- a) Article 1: In this article, sociocultural perspectives on higher education learning and network theories are examined with an emphasis on mentoring and social networking theories in addition to evaluating the intersection of sociocultural learning and developmental network theories.
- b) Article 2: In this article, the literature is reviewed from the perspective of the factors that affecting integration of critical thinking to higher learning in distance and traditional higher education such as faculty factors, learner factors as well as learner environment factors.
- c) Article 3: in this article, various aspects of how socialization theories are discussed in details in order to build up on the proposed theoretical framework.
- d) The commonalities between the purposes of the considered articles is that, the three articles adopt the same theoretical or conceptual framework to build on the literature review.
- e) The commonalities of the literature reviews is important in providing an overview of how the adopted theoretical or conceptual frameworks are developed.
5) Research Participants
- a) Article 1: In this article, the research participants or sample size was 50 doctoral students who were interviewed and most of them have been engaged in various activities of their creativity to either partially or fully evade the need of analyzing, documenting or theorizing their work.
- b) Article 2: In this article, the research participants included 66 universities in California (both private and public) from where the research study was carried out.
- c) Article 3: In this article, all the 83 doctoral students were included in the study as part of research participants.
- d) The commonalities between the purposes of the considered articles is that, the number of participants is almost the same among all the considered articles.
- e) Since the number of research participants in all the three articles is relatively the same, it would be easy to compare the results.
6) Limitations
- a) Article 1: The limitation in this article is that, the outcomes equation complexity is suggestive of a study that evaluate the influence of conflicting network values, goals and norms with regards to doctoral students without consideration of students at lower education levels or network partners and local contexts.
- b) Article 2: In this article, the main limitation is inherent in the research design since the two groups considered in this study are not universally treated because the distance learning group can access all books, whilst the classroom group does not enjoy this privilege.
- c) Article 3: In this article, the main limitation is concerned with how the sample size was collected since all the doctoral had to be included with an appropriate method of sampling.
- d) The commonalities between the purposes of the considered articles is that, there are delimitations to most of the identified limitations.
- e) Identification of the limitations is essential since it enables the appropriate delimitations to be devised.
7) Results/Conclusions
- a) Article 1: in this article, the results indicate that oftentimes most of the doctoral students usually achieved a workable equilibrium between their aesthetic and analytic activities, which is envisaged to redefine conceptual and theoretical ideas previously considered as challenges towards inspiration resources.
- b) Article 2: The results of this article found that while about 90% of the interviewed instructors claimed that in their instruction critical thinking constitutes the core objective, only 19% of them could succinctly explain the meaning of critical thinking.
- c) Article 3: The results of multivariate analysis confirm that, social interaction is important among doctoral students and their departments.
- d) The commonalities between the purposes of the considered articles is that, the results of the three articles affirms the need for students in higher education levels to socialize and network.
- e) The results obtained in the three articles can be applied in other areas where social interaction or networking among higher education students is considered.
8) Conclusion
It can be concluded that a comparison of the three articles that are considered in this comparison matrix reveals a number of commonalities in almost all sections, particularly with regards to conceptual and theoretical frameworks as well as research designs. A consideration of the three articles combined, it is evident that socialization and networking among students is important for both distant and classroom students. Future research is recommended to determine the envisaged trends in student socialization and networking in future both for classroom and distance students.
References
Baker, V., & Lattuca, L. R. (2010). Developmental networks and learning: toward an interdisciplinary perspective on identity development during doctoral study. Studies in Higher Education, 35(7), 807-827. http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=54329722&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Visser, L., Visser, Y. L., & Schlosser, C. (2003). Critical thinking distance education and traditional education. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 4(4), 401-407. http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=12620957&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Weidman, J. C., & Stein, E. L. (2003). Socialization of doctoral students to academic norms. Research in Higher Education, 44(6), 641. Available at http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=11092904&site=ehost-live&scope=site
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