EER413 Assessment 1 Guide: Response to Student Questions
Assessment item 1
Summary and critique of two research studies
Length: 2000 words
Submission method options
Task
There is a wealth of research that has been and is being done into early childhood development, learning and practice. The practice of critical teacher-research requires thoughtful and careful analysis of research. Two articles have been selected for this assignment for critique.
The qualitative article can be accessed from the following link:
Lee, S., & Goh, G. (201). Action research to address the transition from kindergarten to primary school: Children’s authentic learning, construction play, and pretend play. Early Childhood Research & Practice. 14(1). Retrieved from http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v14n1/lee.html
The quantitative article can be accessed from the following link:
Edwards, B., Taylor, M., & Fiorini, M. (2011). Who gets the ‘gift of time’ in Australia?
Exploring delayed primary school entry. Australian Review of Public Affairs, 10(1),
41-60. Retrieved from
http://www.australianreview.net/journal/v10/n1/edwards_etal.html[E1]
Critical Evaluation of Two Research Articles. (40 marks)
Write a brief summary and critical evaluation of the two research articles (included above). For each of the two articles, write a summary and critical evaluation based on questions adapted from McMillan, J. H. and Wergin, J. F. (2010). Understanding and evaluating educational research. Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Merrill.
The summary should address the following questions:
-What is the year of publication and location of the study?
- What is/are the research question(s) being addressed?
- What methods were used that address the research questions?
- What were the major findings?
- What are the implications of the findings to the field of early childhood education?
The critical evaluation should address the following questions:
- Is the sample population described adequately? What further information would you need to know? and why?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the methodology and paradigm used to answer the research questions?
- What were the ethical considerations in this study and were they fully addressed by the researchers?
- To what extent is generalization appropriate for the goal or aim of the research context (or what might generalization not be appropriate to the research context?)? What factors might influence generalisability?
- In what ways does this research challenge or support general or your own long-held beliefs and practice?
You should incorporate references beyond the class notes to support your ideas.
Rationale
Summary and Critical Evaluation of Two Research Studies - Finding and selecting relevant research, and developing the ability to think critically about the question, the methods, and the conclusions will help you to make good use of the wealth of research that is available to inform our decisions as educators.
This assessment allows you to demonstrate the degree to which you have met the following learning objectives for this subject:
o evaluate the appropriateness of different research approaches to investigating and addressing problems in early childhood education; o understand the different paradigms within which research in early childhood education is situated and explain the implications for the research process; o describe and comment upon current research in early childhood education; o analyze and critique reports of research into early childhood education / practice; o identify some research methods useful for educators' research on their own professional practice; o understand how research is influenced by political, economic, and social forces in society; o identify and discuss the ethical issues involved in research in early childhood education
Marking criteria
The following marking criteria will be used for assessment 1:
1. Quality of the written material. (15 marks; 7.5 marks per article)
In order to pass criterion 1, you must show that all required aspects of the assessment task are fully attended to and are completed in detail. You must also provide evidence of your developing appreciation and understanding of research concepts, and present an informed response. Written summaries which do not meet these standards will fail this criterion.
2. Critical Reflection. (20 marks; 10 marks per article)
In order to pass criterion 2, you must provide reflective comments about research issues and concepts, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the two articles thoughtfully, with honesty, rigour, and responsibility. Reflection should be critical in nature, going beyond simply describing the content of the article. Responses that only include a 'surface-level' description which do not critically consider the content of the articles will fail this criterion.
3. Grammar and organisation (5 marks)
In order to pass criterion 3, appropriate English should be used and writing should be coherent and free of grammatical and spelling mistakes. Responses that contain multiple grammatical errors and are poorly organized will fail this criterion.
4. APA referencing
In order to pass this assessment, you must present citations and referencing in accordance with the University's standard approach, and include references beyond class notes. Failure for this criterion will occur where students depart from the guidelines, implement the guidelines in a haphazard fashion, or do not include references beyond the class notes. Lack of credit to original sources is academic dishonesty.
Presentation
Assessments must be 12-point font, one and one half page spacing. The assessment must also be titled, and pages numbered.
Over word count limit
Assessments with word counts below 1800 and over 2200 will be subject to a penalty as follows:
1800 = 0.5 mark deduction
2200 = 0.5 mark deduction
2400 = 1 mark deduction
Tutors will stop reading at 2500 works
Assessment Guide:
Here, I have compiled some of my responses to student questions for you to use as a guide in preparing your assessment. You are, of course, welcome to ask additional questions:
Your assessment instructions state that the summary and critical evaluation questions are based on questions adapted from McMillan & Wergin (2010). You have not been assigned this text and do not need to access it. I only included this citation to make it known that I have taken the questions from this source and adapted them.
Format
It is not necessary to include the assessment questions in your response, although you will not be penalised if you do. Responses should be written in paragraphs that flow coherently, rather than as dot points. For example, “The research questions in this study include.....” . The assessment should not read like a question and answer list.
Some people have asked about the use of headings. We will accept various formats as long as the assessment requirements are met and the responses are written coherently. However, for people who would prefer more direction on this, you may use headings to separate the different sections. For example:
Article 1 (give reference)
Summary
Critical evaluation
(then repeat with the remaining articles)
References
You may reference the EER413 modules as:
Piazza, L. (2012). Title of the module. Retrieved from Charles Sturt University Research and Practice in Early Childhood Education Interact Site.
For in-text citations of module one for instance, you can cite as follows: (Piazza, L., 2012, module 1, p. 3).
Your assigned readings would also be necessary to include in your discussion. You should also use additional sources, beyond the subject modules and readings. You can check the recommended resources in your subject outline for additional references. Be very careful about referencing. Please use APA format and follow the guide to APA referencing from the CSU library website. We provided a link to this in your introduction to the subject file and the announcement posted at the beginning of Week 4 (August 4th).
The use of “I”
You should not use “I” in the majority of responses. For example, instead of writing “I believe the strengths of this methodology include.....”, you should instead write “The strengths of this methodology include...”. The only exception is the last critical evaluation question that states, “In what ways does this research challenge or support general or your own long-held beliefs and practice?” For this question, it is reasonable to use first person, for example, “This research challenges my practice with children by.....”.
Some things to consider in the summary and critical evaluation
Here are some things you may want to think about when addressing the summary questions. These are some suggestions I have made to students who have individually asked particular questions about this. However, there are certainly other things to consider, so please do not consider these suggestions the stopping point. The key thing that we are looking for is an understanding of the main points of the articles, and an ability to critically reflect on what the research can and cannot tell you.
Summary:
- What are the research question(s) being addressed?
- Typically, you should be able to identify the particular research questions or aims of the study in the first few paragraphs. You can look for statements such as “The aim of this research was to examine.....” or sometimes the researchers will explicitly state them, for example, “The research question is...”. The response to this question needs to be more precise than giving us the general topic of study. For example, stating that the research was about “social-emotional development” would not be detailed enough.
- What methods were used to address the research questions?
- Here you can talk about general research methods (qualitative, quantitative or mixed-method), as well as the methods by which the researchers collected the data (did they use observations, if so what kind? Interviews? Surveys, etc.?
- What were the major findings?
- You will be able to locate these by looking at the discussion section. Typically, the researchers will succinctly summarise the main findings here. Be sure to discuss only what the researchers found in this particular study, not what previous researchers have found.
- What are the implications of the findings to the field of early childhood education?
- In the discussion section, you will find that the researchers discuss the ways in which the findings of the study can be applied to practice or policy. How could actual EC practitioners use the findings of the study? You can report on the implications identified by the researchers, and you can go beyond this by thinking about other ways to apply the findings to practice.
Critical Evaluation:
- Is the sample population described adequately? What further information would you need to know, and why?
- The sample population simply means, ‘who participated in the study?’ This can be found in the Method section. You can usually find some details about the sample, such as age, gender distribution, where they lived, how they were recruited, etc. Think about whether or not the researcher gave you enough information about the participants or if there are other details you think would help you to make an informed decision about whether or not the study is credible.
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the methodology used to answer the research questions?
- We have discussed (or will discuss in the next few weeks) through the topics and on the forum the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative, qualitative, and mixedmethod approaches. Your knowledge about paradigms and the strengths and weaknesses of each type could be relevant here. You could also discuss the particular data gathering techniques (surveys, observations, interviews, etc.) and strengths and weaknesses. What kind of information can they give us and how are they limited?
- What were the ethical considerations in this study and were they fully addressed by the researchers?
- Module 5 will be very relevant here. I will not go into much more detail about this here as I do not want to answer the question for you. Sometimes the researchers will explicitly discuss ethical considerations in the method section, but sometimes, it is not known whether or not the researchers adequately addressed them. If you cannot find a discussion of ethical considerations by the researchers, what would be important for you to know more about? Think about this from a participant’s point of view.
- To what extent is generalization appropriate for the goal or aim of the research context (or what might generalization not be appropriate to the research context?)? What factors might influence generalisability?
- Generalisability refers to the extent that the results found in this particular study can be applied to other populations. For example, could the results in a particular study be expected to be similar in other settings, for other people, etc? You should refer back to the type of methodology used in the study and the sample characteristics (for example, was the sample large enough, diverse enough?) to inform your discussion.
Remember to consider the aim of the study to determine if generalizability is important.
- In what ways does this research challenge or support general or your own longheld beliefs and practice?
- This should be your own personal thoughts and beliefs, and you can use “I” here. There is a great deal of room here for individual responses and depth of reflection. You need to show that you have thought carefully about the research, how it can inform your practice (and early childhood practice in general) and how it does or does not challenge you beliefs (and why?).