Psychology Paper on the Methodological Flaws Locate an article that describes a research study and write a 7 page APA style paper that summarizes and critiques that study
. Examples, as well as other useful tools, can also be found online. The critique of the study will describe the methodological flaws found in the study. Methodological flaws concern those that include researcher bias, social desirability issues (dishonesty of participants), sampling issues, instrument issues (ex. unreliable or non-validated tests, poor design features, etc.), poorly/vaguely operationalized variables, artificial setting, internal validity (invalid conclusions),
external validity (generalizability), demand characteristics, random assignment, confounds, etc. The article can be any length but should describe the method of the study in enough detail to do a proper analysis. The paper must be at least 7
pages long including the title page, abstract, summary, critique, conclusion, and references. The research paper should include:
1) Title page: Title, running header, author, institution, and date.
2) Abstract: Summarize 3-5 below in 120 words or less. You should write this section last because it is a brief summary of all the other sections of the paper.
3) Summary: Provide a thorough summary of the study in your own words. The summary should identify the type of study (survey,
observation, case study, archival study, experiment, quasi-experiment) and describe the method in detail.
4) Critique: Describe at least 5 methodological flaws of the study and explain why they are problematic to the reliability and validity of the study. Each methodological flaw should be addressed in a separate paragraph. For example, suppose an experiment made use of only 10 participants, in such case one could make the following argument: “The fact that the experiment
by Pedersen (1987) made use of a small number of participants (i.e., only 10) is especially problematic. A good experiment should use as larger a number of participants (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini, 2005). Some experts have suggested that a reasonable number of participants for an experiment is 20 per experimental condition (Miller, 1999). In this case, the experiment
contained alcohol and no alcohol condition indicating that it should have contained at least 40 total participants
(i.e., 2 conditions X 20 = 40). A small number of participants makes the experiment potentially unreliable because there is considerable variability among research participants (especially with respect to how they respond to alcohol
). The small number of participants also makes the experiment lack validity because it is impossible for an experiment
to be valid (or the conclusions to be reasonable) if there is a lack of reliability.”
5) Discussion: Restate your main points briefly.
6) References: list all sources used for the research paper in APA format. Your paper should reference the research study you are critiquing, your textbook for information on good methodology, and any other sources that you may choose to help you in analyzing the study.
7) Article copy: A copy of the article that reports the study described in your paper.