Teaching Students to Apply a Five Stage Process to Systematically Evaluate Quantitative Psychological Research Articles

Abstract

Details of a single activity are presented to introduce undergraduate psychology students to basic critical evaluation criteria for quantitative psychological research articles and to assess students' critical evaluation ability. The activity could easily be fitted into units or modules running towards the end of Level II, or at higher levels. The activity is distinctive in that it introduces students to a combination of accepted methodological and more general evaluative criteria, and it teaches students to work systematically through a five stage process to evaluate a journal article. The activity starts with a description of the article's main features, then works through three ‘levels' of evaluation, and ends in an overall categorisation of the article's worth. Overall, as judged by student performance and student feedback, the activity appears to be successful. Descriptive statistics for marks are comparable to other modules at the university, marking is reliable, students perceive the activity positively, and most students report making use of the information they had learned from doing the activity in other areas of their degree.