Homework

Paper Activity 4.1

Topic: My topic is about the relation between social judgment and aggressive behavior in children 

Article 1: Social judgments, frontal asymmetry, and aggressive behavior in young children: A replication study using EEG

Paper Activity 4.1

Directions: 

1. Choose a topic. After reviewing the prompt for the final paper, think about the topic that you want to write your paper on. You can look through the syllabus for broad topics that may be of interest, or do a general search on the internet. 


2. Search for 1 article. After choosing your topic and watching Video 4.3 on finding academic articles, it’s your turn to search for 1 articles that will support your topic. My advice is to narrow the topic down enough so that you can focus your article search and determine whether it is relevant to your topic.


3. Evaluate this article by:
   
   
   
   1. Using the CRAAP test. Review the CRAAP test, and identify how the given article does/does not meet quality standards of each letter. Is this an appropriate article for your paper? Why or why not? 
   
   
   2. Using the hierarchy of evidence. Review the hierarchy of research evidence graphic. Where does the article fit on this hierarchy? Will this be a good article for you to use in your paper? Why/ why not? 
   
   
   
   


4. Write APA formatted references (citations) for each article. You can review Video 3.2 on APA formatting, the APA quick reference guide, or get citations from Google scholar or the journal’s website. The goal is to have you get feedback on what can improve on your APA references prior to writing your paper. 

Example 

Topic: Is a lack of awareness of mental health resources on college campuses a barrier to seeking treatment? [note, this topic would NOT be appropriate for your paper since it is not about childhood]. 

Article 1: 

Yorgason, J. B., Linville, D., & Zitzman, B. (2008). Mental health among college students: Do those who need services know about and use them? Journal of American College Health, 57(2), 173–182. https://doi.org/10.3200/JACH.57.2.173-182

Currency: This article was written in 2008, so may not be the most current for my purposes. I’m unsure how much mental health resources have changed over the last 12 years on college campuses, although I believe that stigma has decreased since then. 

Relevance: This article demonstrates that students who are more distressed are more likely to know and use mental health resources. Thus, this may not be a barrier to treatment. This may be a relevant article in that it provides nuances to who is likely to know and seek treatment. 

Authority: The three authors are from universities (Bringham Young, University of Oregon), and someone in a mental health agency. Thus, they seem to be credible in writing about this issue. The Journal of American College Health is from the organization the American College Health Association, which is a national organization. 

Accuracy: The journal is a peer-reviewed journal (see the link here), thus others in the field have reviewed the article for accuracy. The authors support their conclusions with evidence from 266 college students. Thus, it’s a fair amount of students they surveyed, although it comes from only one campus. 

Purpose: Generally, this seems to be an article to inform, rather than trying to sell me anything. 

Analysis based on the CRAAP test: Overall, this article seems to do well in most areas of the CRAAP test. I believe that I may be able to find a more current article, since mental health on college campuses may have changed since 2008. Thus, I will continue to search for a newer article by looking at Google Scholar for those who have cited this article. 

Hierarchy of evidence: This is a cross-sectional survey based study. It’s relatively low on the hierarchy of research evidence. It may be difficult to conduct an experiment on this question of whether students who are more distressed know or use mental health resources on campus. Thus, this survey based study may not be problematic. However, it may be strengthened by being a longitudinal study (ex. Following students over a semester and seeing if level of distress changed their help-seeking behaviors). 

Analysis on hierarchy of evidence: Overall, this may not be the strongest evidence, so a more thorough search may be useful to improve the quality of articles for my blog.