What was the overall background to this article? How does it build on or add to prior research? In other words, describe the “big picture” context of this study and why it is important.
What was the researcher’s question or hypothesis? (Note: There is often more than one.)
What was the rationale for their hypothesis? In other words, why did they expect to find a particular pattern of results?
Note that this question applies to most articles, but not all, as sometimes there’s no real rationale other than just “we wanted to explore the topic.”
What are the key variables?
In other words, what are the main concepts that the researchers were studying? For example, if I wanted to know whether weekly review quizzes would help my PSY 111 students get higher grades, then my variables would be “review quizzes” and “grades.”
You don’t need to specifically have a sentence that says “The key variables were X, Y, and Z.” In fact, you shouldn’t. Just make sure that all of the key variables get identified clearly somewhere in your summary.
If they are not obvious variables (such as age), then you will have to explain them in your own words, so that it is clear to me that you understand what you are talking about.
Note that not everything they measure is a key variable. For example, researchers will often describe participants’ ages or ethnicities, just as a way to give you an idea of who was in their sample. But age isn’t a key variable unless they are specifically comparing people from different age groups.
Who were the participants?
You’ll probably want to give some basic demographic information, but don’t go overboard. You’ll also have to consider which details about the sample are most relevant to helping your reader understand the gist of the study.
How did the researchers measure each of the key variables?
You don’t need to give specific names of measures, but rather describe each one. Did they use open-ended interviews? Short multiple-choice surveys? Etc. If you think it would be helpful in explaining what happened, you might want to give an example of the kinds of questions they asked in surveys or interviews.
What method did the researchers use to test their hypotheses?
Don’t just tell me “they used the survey method” or “they used the experimental method.” I want to know how they went about setting up their study and collecting their data.
What were their results?
You are NOT expected to understand or to report their statistical analyses. Instead, summarize their results in words. For example, you might say “They found that girls were more likely to suffer from depression than boys.” Depending on the study, this might take anywhere from a few sentences to a few paragraphs.
How did the researchers interpret their results? In other words, why do they think that they got the results that they did?
What were some of the limitations of the present study, and what suggestions did the authors provide for future research?
Note: Sometimes they may not list limitations or make suggestions for future research, in which case you obviously don’t have to either
