Research Activity: Scholarly and Popular Media
In this assignment, you will compare and contrast articles from research and the popular media and evaluate their applicability to early childhood practice.
Create a 4- to 6-page paper (not including the title and references pages) in a Word document for your response.
Use APA 7th Edition format for the title page, references page, and in-text citations.
Develop an introduction and conclusion for your paper.
Part 1: Dissecting a Research Article
Locate a peer-reviewed article related to early childhood development – a topic of interest to you, such as music and cognitive development. The article should be no older than 5 to 7 years.
A good place to search is the college database or Google Scholar. Peer-reviewed articles, also called scholarly sources, are written by experts in a field and written to keep others interested in that field up to date on the most recent research, findings, and news (see Module 1 Learning Objects).
Dissect the research article, paraphrasing the material found related to:
Purpose or hypothesis of the study
What the author(s) hoped to find
Issue being researched
Other research done on the topic
Theorists or theories used as a framework for the study
How participants were found or recruited
Demographics of the participants
Summary of the discussion and conclusions (the main points you took away from the reading)
Limitations
Recommendations for further research
Part 2: Dissecting a Popular Article
Locate an article in the popular media on the same topic as the research article.
A popular media article is not found in a scholarly journal. These are articles you would find in a magazine you can purchase at the book or grocery store; something online at sites such as The Huffington Post, CNN, or a parenting or teacher website. A rule of thumb: if the article does not have scholarly resources, it is considered popular media.
Compare and contrast the two articles. In the comparison and contrast, complete the following:
Synopsis of each article
Explanation of how the articles are the same
Explanation of the differences between the two (be specific). (For example, is one article more credible than the other? What makes this so?)
How comparing and contrasting the articles affects your feelings about and understanding of the topic
How each article applies to work in early childhood education
Complete, APA formatted citations for both articles
