Chapter 2 – Background for Evaluating Research

Research articles published in academic journals are very different from news media or magazine articles. Reading and understanding journal articles is an acquired skill, and this chapter provides the first steps on your way to mastering it: essential guidelines to help you better understand research, with explanations and examples. First, the chapter describes typical features of research reports like a narrow focus, artificial settings, and brevity. Next, it gives you an overall sense of journal and study quality (which varies significantly), points out the key parts of a study that contribute to research quality (measures and sampling), and provides explanations on why some weaker studies can be important and deserve publication. Finally, it explains why definitions matter (even though they may seem to be the most boring part of an article), why research related to theories is most important, and why no individual study provides “proof,” but replication hugely matters in science. The exercises at the end of the chapter ask you to judge your familiarity with the chapter guidelines and offer opportunities to apply these guidelines to an empirical article of your choice.