Article Review for Discussion 2

Tijms, J., Stoop, M.A. & Pollock, J.N. (Aug 2018), Bibliotherapeutic book club intervention to promote reading and social-emotional competencies in low SES community-based high schools:  A randomized controlled trial.  Journal of Research in Reading, 41 (3), 525-545

This article asks the question: What is the effect of a school-based intervention to promote reading skills and social-emotional competencies in young adolescents from urban, low socioeconomic status communities. The study uses an open randomized control trial and a pretest-intervention-posttest design, study of high school freshmen students (n = 100) from two schools with the highest number of students from poor, urban areas of The Netherlands. Intervention sessions were prided for 45 minutes a week for a 12 week period, in groups of 5 to 7 students. The data sources for the 100 students included: pretest and posttest, the Vlaamse Test Begrijpend Lezen, 6th grade version, a self-reporting questionnaire about reading attitude, reading motivation and social-emotional competencies.  Students were also assessed using a Visual Word Decoding test and the NIO subscale for Vocabulary.  It was found from the open randomized control trial that Netherland students showed significant progress on reading comprehension, reading attitude and social-emotional competencies, but not for academic attitude and reading motivation.  There was also a positive effect of intervention on reading comprehension and vocabulary.  This article is useful to the present study on what happens to the reading attitude as one progresses through the grades, and the general usefulness of book clubs. Although the article was well-written, it is a small sample size and it used a baseline test that was 3 years below current grade level.  In addition, the intervention was given by junior psychologists, making it difficult to replicate.

Template Tip

Answer these questions in your review of the article:

1. What question is the article asking?

2. What kind of study did they use?

3. Size matters. What was the sample size?

4. Describe the demographics of the participants.

5. What did they use to see if their theories were correct? Observations? Interviews? Pre and Post-Tests?

6. How long was the study/survey? This song sums it up for me :-)

7. Sum it up… .like did this shit work for them or not?

8. Ask a nosy ass friend to read it over for you. What? You don’t have any friends that would be able to do that? You need to find yourself another circle of friends, but that’s another post!

   Click here for a template to help you review many articles. What I found out is that reviewing a shitload of articles, with a mix of data from your own study is all a dissertation is - who knew?!

Peer Reviewed

What is a peer reviewed journal article? Why are these so important to include in your dissertation?

A peer reviewed article is as the name suggests.  It is an article that has been reviewed by peers usually in the same field, prior to publishing.  This is paramount because it says that the article was read and reviewed by scholars and not the guy that pumps your gas every Monday.

Primary and Secondary Sources 

A primary source is information given by the persons who actually conducted the research or thought of the idea.  A secondary source is a summary of someone else’s primary work. The problem is that it is basically gossip; someone’s version of what happened.  Unless you read the article itself, then it is a secondary source.  Meaning,  you did not read it from the author itself. Although reviews may contain both types of sources, it is better to have more primary than secondary sources.

Gossip is ok if you’re ten.  But writing a dissertation, you kind of need the information straight from the horse’s mouth.