Critique of Spence, Deborah L, et al, Identifying Children in Middle Childhood Who are at Risk for Reading Problems: New evidence and to analyze and access an appropriate tool for reading in elementary students using a response to intervention model, School Psychology Review 2010, Volume 39, No.2 , pp258-276 • The term paper assignment for this class requires you to select a scientific article published in a journal selected from a list of approved journals, and then critique the research methods used in that article using what you learned in this course. It is also OK in your critique to mention things about the methodology that were done right. Also, while I don't expect you to become an expert in the subject of your chosen article, I do expect you to look at the scientific literature on that subject—and one way to do that would be to read some of the studies the authors' of your chosen article cite—and incorporate information from that literature in your paper where appropriate. • The list of approved journals from which the article you critique may be selected is as follows: American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, International Journal of Aging & Human Development, Social Problem, Sociological Perspectives, Sociological Quarterly, of Sociology of Education. • If you want to use an article from a different journal than these, you will have to show me the article you select so that I can approve it. In that case please do NOT email me a copy of the article. Instead, print it out and show it to me before or after class or during office hours. The article must be from a scholarly scientific journal (not a magazine, etc.) and it must be a research article (not an opinion piece, etc.). I do not have to see or approve the article in advance if it is in one of the approved journals. • The article you select must be quantitative in nature, in other words it must present numbers and statistics. Also, make sure what you have selected is an actual research article (a good indicator of that is if the article has an abstract at the beginning of it). • To locate the articles published in those journals online, follow these steps. Go to Blackboard for the course, click on the USF Libraries tab, the select "All USF Libraries", then click on "E Journals by Title", then type in the name of one of the approved journals, then select a year for the journal, then select one of the electronic sources for articles in that journal (JSTOR, Ebcohost, etc.). The procedure may vary a little from what I have said here, so use common sense as you point and click through it. If you have any problems, one of the librarians on the first floor of the main USF library can help you, or call Academic Computing Help at 974-1222. • Once you pull up the pdf of the article you want to use, a good idea is to download it to your computer's desktop (or better yet a memory stick or other external storage device in case your computer crashes). Or you could just print it out, since you will have to attach a printed copy of the article to your term paper when you turn it in. • Your paper must be typed, and you must staple a copy of the article you critiqued to the back of it. In other words, your paper will go on top, with the article underneath it and stapled to it. Do NOT turn the paper in in a plastic binder or in any form other than stapled. Make sure both your name and your U number are on your typed paper. • The best tip I can give for doing the paper is just to take the basic points made in class and in the readings, and then see if the article violated any of those things or did them right. For example, in class we said you need to have a probability sample in order to test for statistical significance. So if the article you picked doesn't have a probability sample but they ran significance tests anyway, that would be a critique. As another example, in class we said that a research study should include all possible variables that could affect the outcome variable. So if you can think of explanatory variables the authors didn't include, that would be another critique. On the other hand, if your chosen article did these things right, then you could compliment the authors for that. In other words just make a list of the points about statistics we made in class and/or were mentioned in the book, and then take that list and see if your article did those things right. Remember also to take a look at some of the other studies on that topic and incorporate information from those into your paper where appropriate. • When you critique the methods the authors used, it would be a plus if you could also suggest alternatives that would have been better. For instance if the authors did an experiment and they try to generalize from that to the society in general, you could mention that we learned in class that experiments are typically weak on generalizability and you could suggest that the authors might have been better off using a survey (if the advantages of a survey would in fact outweight those of an experiment for that particular topic). • When you critique or praise methodology, be specific and say why the methods are good or incorrect. For example, don't just say "the authors shouldn't have use tests of statistical significance", instead give the reason (for example "the authors shouldn't have used tests of statistical significance because they have a nonprobability sample and we learned in class that you need to have a probability sample to properly do significance tests."). • For the format of the term paper as well as an example of how to do it, see the term paper example I have posted in the Course Documents section of Blackboard. The article my example paper critiques is also in the Course Documents section. The format you should use for your paper is to state the page, column, and paragraph number for each comment you want to make, and then briefly make the comment just like I did in my example. Notice in the example paper that I critiqued the methods when the authors were wrong, I complimented them when they did something well, and I discussed their study in light of what other studies on that topic show. I don't necessarily expect your paper to be as detailed as mine (after all I've been doing this for years) but at least it will give you an idea of how to do the assignment.
¶ … Speece, Deborah L, et al., Identifying Children in Middle Childhood Who are at Risk for Reading Problems: New evidence and to analyze and access an appropriate tool for reading in elementary students using a response to intervention model, School Psychology Review 2010, Volume 39, No.2
Reviewer:
Page 258 and 259, introductory section: The authors did an excellent job in reviewing relevant literature on reading disabilities as went ahead to state approximate figures of the number of students having reading disabilities. The numbers of students who perform below average are also provided (as a percentage).The authors also did a good job in indicating the research gaps when it comes to the issue of learning disabilities in children. This provided them with an opportunity of justifying their research aims and objectives. The authors noted towards the end of page 258 that even though there have been several advances in the early identification as well as intervention for children (student) with reading disabilities, there is a general lack of research in the identification as well as remediating older student's reading skills. The author appropriately stated the purpose of their article by noting that it was aimed at the investigating the identification as well as definition of the reading problems affecting older children with focus being on the fourth grade students.
Page 260, first paragraph in the measurement section: The authors discussed the theoretical framework to be used for the measurement of the predictor variables. The author indicated the need for considering a broader measurement framework for the purpose of enhancing the accuracy of the prediction with the older readers. The authors also reviewed various theoretical frameworks used in the study of language skills with an inclusion of the phonological processing, an important predictor of reading development.
Page 260, the second paragraph of the second column: The authors presented an argument that recently, there has been a resurgence in the theoretical as well as empirical interest in both word fluency as well as its connection to the concept of comprehension. This they did with support from relevant literature: A good sign of sound academic research practice. They proceeded to indicate that enough evidence exist to indicate that the fluency measures of text-level and word level readings are very unique predictors of young children's reading skills.
Page 261, the first paragraph: The authors presented the importance of having criterion variables. This is indeed an excellent explanation for the logic behind their choice of predictor variables.
Page 261, the second and third paragraphs: The authors stated the need for using various methodological approaches in the quest of increasing the accuracy and efficiency of the prediction. Their analysis is important for future studies in they it acts as a guideline for any study aiming to investigate a sample comprising of older students. For instance the authors noted that that for the younger students, the process of screening batteries usually employ individually administered assessments due to the fact that the younger children normally require individualized attention in completing the assessment tasks while the older students are noted to be capable of effectively completing their the very assessment tasks in a larger group setting. It is mainly concerned with the methodological approaches for increasing efficiency as well as accuracy.
Pager 262, Methods section, the very first paragraph in the left-hand column: The authors presented a description of the sample characteristics. The sample is noted to have been derived from fourth-graders. The sample size chosen by the authors is appropriate (150).In order to ensure that the actual phenomenon is captured and its characteristics monitored, the students/sample size was drawn from a diverse range of schools (15 schools) in a community have a representative sample of residents from different ethnic and social-economic backgrounds (17.9% Caucasian,1% Asian,4% biracial, 3.1% from unknown race). This means that indeed the sample selection criteria employed by the authors was good. The use a special inclusion criteria mean that the authors were very mindful of the quality of data obtained (all students must be able to speak English as their primary language).
Page 262, Measures, the second paragraph in the right-hand column up to the continuation paragraph on Page 265, flowing from Page 264 and situated on the right hand column of page 265: (Page 252-265) In this section, the authors affectively explores various measure to be used in the study. The authors did a commendable job in presenting the reliability and validity of these measures and thereby giving them the margin of error whenever these measures are employed.
Page 265, Procedure section, second paragraph on the left-hand side: In this section, the author presented the methodology used in the data collection. They actually did a good job in collecting the data over a period of time thereby providing a historical variation or consistency of the variables under study. The fact that they did On-site fidelity test through out the time period when the study was done is also commendable.
Page 265, Data-analytic plan section, third paragraph on the right-hand side: The authors noted that the data analysis process was multistep in nature.The issue of selection of the criterion then came into play. The authors then discussed the various regression techniques for determining the relative importance of the various predictors.
Page 266, The results section on the first paragraph in the left-hand column:
In this section, the authors explored the analysis of the exploratory factor of the criterion as well as the identification of the actual At-Risk readers. The technique used is elaborate and well documented.
Page 266-271: This section presented a detailed explanation of the results of the data analysis with the concerned facts and figures being presented on tables and otherwise. The amount of detail captured by the statistical analysis is so enormous and indicates a good research by the authors.
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