The initial assessment of a research article is designed to aid students who lack prior knowledge of research and have limited experience in reading research articles to grasp the fundamental concepts of research. Students are tasked with identifying a social work research article (or an article related to their major if it differs from social work). As this first critique serves as a preliminary exercise, students are encouraged to evaluate the article without specific guidelines but rather to critically reflect on the nature of research articles. This involves analyzing the structure, components, composition, writing styles, sections, and subsections, among other aspects. The emphasis is on the format of the paper, and students are advised not to focus on the content or narratives within the article. For instance, instead of discussing how authors found that mental health negatively affected the academic achievement of foster care children, students should concentrate on how the research was conducted and how the authors describe their methodology during the study.
The chosen article for this assignment must report empirical research (only qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods research articles are accepted; no theoretical papers with no data analysis) and must be published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals within the past 10 years. The Journal of Evidence-Informed Social Work is suggested as a prime candidate for locating empirical research articles (Journal of Evidence Informed Social Work ). However, they have a few review articles. So, please carefully check if they say it is a review article like book review.
