Questions And Topics We Can Help You To Answer

This is a two part paper. First part requires to do at least 4 article summaries (2 page summary for each article) and the second part requires reflection on the reviewed articles which will include 2 pages of a brief summary of all four articles, 1 page of how are the article findings related to early childhood education and 1 page of what are the implications of the findings ( how can you connect or not the findings to your experiences with young children. Articles need to be published within 10 year in peer-reviewed journals that relate to the topic.

Guidelines for Article Summary[1]



Author(s). (year). Title of article. Title of Journal, Volume (Number), pages.         

                                  

Research Problem/ Purpose

This is generally the statement(s) that lays the premise of a research article.
Sometimes, it could also be in form of the background of the study.
This will be the section in the article that explores why the research was conducted in the first place


Research Questions/ Hypothesis

This is the actual question/problem that the author(s) decide to explore in the article.
This is generally laid out in the form of questions.
Sometimes, you may need to infer the questions.
Hypothesis is rare in a research paper, but you might find that too.


Paradigm/Theoretical Perspective



This is a general framework that defines a “point of view” within a discipline. For example, if an article talks about how the context and environment affected the language and literacy development of a young child, most probably, the article was based on a “sociocultural framework.”
In very general terms, one can also understand this as the philosophy used by the author(s) to explore the phenomenon mentioned in the research question. Or, how you would use your philosophy to explain how a child learns a task.


Focus of Literature Review



Every article will have a review of the literature in the field. The purpose of this literature review is to find out what kind of research has already been done so that we do not just replicate existing studies (unless there is a need to explore the same issue using different parameters—settings/participants/methodology, etc.). 
Secondly, this review helps the author(s) identify what kind of work still needs to be done.
For this section, you will briefly summarize what the authors have reviewed. Use the heading in the review (if the authors use headings) as guidelines to identify the significant ideas.


Type of Methodology Used

Generally, you should be able to find the type of methodology listed. Some common ones are:

Qualitative
Ethnographic
Case study
Quantitative
Research Design

This is the overview of the study itself, i.e., the plan outlining how the study will be conducted


Participants/ Subjects/Setting

How many?
Race/ethnic background
Age
Economic level
The setting of the study


Data Collection Procedures (and Materials or Instruments)



This section tells us about where the data was collected, how it was collected, for how long, etc. Look for:

Questionnaires
Interviews
Observations
Audiotaped/videotaped
The length of the data collection


Data Analysis

How was the data evaluated in order to respond to the research questions?
You should be able to identify different measures for both, qualitative and/or quantitative studies.


Results/Findings

These are the findings of the study
They could be presented in the form of themes or,
The research question(s) could be addressed individually


Discussion/ Evaluation (including strengths and weaknesses)



Talks about the implication of the study
Could include how the study connected with the research that was reviewed
Limitations of the study.
Future research needed in the area.