Does the study back the claims made in the popular media article?
Write a paragraph introducing the topic area. In this paragraph, you will need to use outside sources (i.e., other published, refereed articles) and will need to cite these sources and include them in a reference list at the end of your paper. A minimum of 3-5 other published, refereed scientific article references is required, although you can include more if you wish. Full marks will be awarded to those who first state the significance of the topic and describe some evidence that currently exists around the topic, and then lead in to the popular media article and published, refereed paper.
2. Summarize the popular media article. In this summary, make sure to describe when and where it was published and the main audience (i.e., who is most likely to access and read articles from this newspaper/website). The summary should be detailed enough so that a person could read your summary and not miss out on any critical details that the article had presented.
3. Next, review the published, research article.
a) In the first paragraph, discuss the purpose/objective of the research study and any hypotheses that the authors might have.
b) In the next paragraph, describe the type of research design (cross-sectional study, longitudinal study, experimental design, etc.), the sample (i.e., the participants), the variables that are being assessed (e.g., physical activity, mental health) and the way these variables are being measured (e.g. certain questionnaires). Be as detailed as possible. For example: when you describe the sample, you should present information on their gender, age, and other demographic variables (e.g., where they live/were recruited from), how they were recruited, the sample size (number of participants), and any ethical procedures that were followed in terms of recruiting participants (e.g. getting them to complete consent forms, etc.). Full marks will go to those who present detailed information.
c) Write a paragraph describing how the data were analyzed (i.e., the statistical tests used).
d) Write a paragraph describing the researchers results and conclusions. Discuss whether there are any other studies with similar findings. Talk about the relevance of these findings (i.e., how will they will be applied?) and present recommendations for future research in this area.
4. Now that you have fully dissected each article, you are in a good position to compare how accurate the popular media article is to the published, research article. In the final section of your paper:
a) Discuss your opinion of the popular media article and how accurate it was in terms of reporting information from the published, refereed article. In doing so, present consistencies/inconsistencies that you spotted. Did you spot any biases in the reporting? Does the study back the claims made in the popular media article? Be sure to discuss the relevance of the study to human subjects, the general population, and the course material. (5 MARKS)
b) Discuss noteworthy strengths and limitations of the popular media article.
c) Finally, if you had to re-write the popular media article, how would you change the way that the information was reported? What would you include and why? What wouldnt you include and why? Essentially this last paragraph should be a discussion of how you would improve the accuracy and therefore credibility of this article.
