Article evaluation framework and methodology

¶ … Culturally Responsive School Counseling for Hispanic/Latino Students and Families: The Need for Bilingual school Counselors." With the title alone, it is directly implied that this paper is about analyzing whether or not bilingual counselors are need in schools. This paper will prove to be beneficial to schools where Hispanic/Latino students abound because they are the ones who will directly benefit from having or not having bilingual school counselors. Moreover, this paper will also provide a number of advantages to other school which accommodate culturally-diverse students and families.

This paper is a survey form research study in which the researchers distributed a series of survey questionnaires. This method is very apt for this kind of paper is it is able to acquire the needed information leading the researchers to the proper conclusion.

The researchers hypothesized that the factors affecting the school administrator's need to have bilingual counselors is worth studying as this will provide direct impact to the "school administrators and counselors in educating bilingual school counselors as well as in developing culturally responsive school counseling programs for Hispanic students and families."

The researchers used 13-item questionnaires which were made available upon request to the principal. Each survey forms contain both the open and close ended questions highlighting the:

Adequacy of current programs offering in the school

Benefits of having bilingual counselors in school

The contents of the questionnaires are appropriate for the information needed by the researchers. However, the method of distributing the questionnaires could have been more powerful and effective if the target subject/participants were randomly selected instead of by just waiting for them to ask for a copy of the questionnaire from the principal. Because of the method used in this particular study, the number of subjects/participants was not determined. More so, the researchers were not able to control the duration of the study and the number of participants who answered the questionnaires.

Descriptive statistics was used in data analysis as this is apt for close-ended questions (the respondents were asked to answer the questions by choosing from the choices yes, nor or undecided). Through descriptive statistics, the mean, mode and percentiles will be obtained in regards to the answers in each item in the questionnaires.

The flow of discussion of results followed by the conclusion is clear and properly written. The purposes of the study stated in the beginning were all given due consideration and were all achieved.

In general, this research paper is very simple. What is good in it is the fact that the topic is very profound and yet the researchers were able to simplify it and formulate their own research questions based on the general topic. However, the methodology involved needs some minor modification because some of the most important aspects of research were not clearly stated.

There was not specific number of audience or participants stated. This is important because this will show if the conclusion will be able to generalize the overall population. Is the number of respondents enough to represent the school and will it be enough to initiate the necessary actions from the school administrators?