In your Final Assignment, you will summarize TWO of the above 3 articles, following the same guidelines and incorporating the feedback you receive on your drafts.

In your Final Assignment, you will summarize TWO of the above 3 articles, following the same guidelines and incorporating the feedback you receive on your drafts. You will additionally provide a brief comparison of the two articles. Again, the focus of the comparison will be on methodological aspects and NOT the topics themselves – the “how” aspect of the research.

Articles
ARTICLE 1:
Von Cheong, E., Carol Sinnott, Darren Dahly, and Patricia M. Kearney. “Adverse childhood
experiences (ACEs) and later-life depression: perceived social support as a potential protective
factor.” BMJ open 7, no. 9 (2017): e013228.

ARTICLE 2:
Pooler, Jennifer A., and Mithuna Srinivasan. “Association between Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program participation and cost-related medication non-adherence among older adults with
diabetes.” Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA internal medicine 179, no. 1 (2019): 63-

1. REQUIRED Which study?
 You must refer to the study in a formal way, as done in academic and professional work. This
means referring to the article by the last name (s) and year ONLY.
 Do NOT include the title of the article in the summary or any other information about it.
 Note that in most citation styles, the first author’s name is written last name first but the remaining
authors’ names are written first name first.
 Thus you are presenting a summary of
2. REQUIRED What and Who is the study about? The main research question.
 If you were to tell someone in one sentence, “what is this article about?”, this is what you would
say. Note that of all the things that researchers may or may not include in the abstract, this is one thing that you WILL DEFINITELY FIND IN THE ABSTRACT; in some cases, even a descriiptive title will reveal exactly what and who the study is about. This means if you are combing through the entire paper to figure out what and who the study is about, you are off track.
 In the social sciences, and in quantitative research, an article is rarely describing just one thing. Researchers are mainly interested in identifying or better understanding some RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN two or more things.

2A. OPTIONAL Additional research questions.
 You may want to mention if along with the main research question, the researchers have
examined something else
 Most often, additional research questions will be about answering the main research question but
for a specific smaller group or location or time-period.

3. REQUIRED: Which is the main independent and which is the main dependent variable?
 Review older Slides and Quizzes (variables and measurement, Week 2-3). Note the other terms used – such as predictors for independent variables or outcomes for dependent variables.
 Since the interest is in a relationship between things (variables), there will always be at least one independent variable and at least one dependent variable in every quantitative research article.
 There may be more than one in either category.

3A. OPTIONAL. Are there other important variables?
 In the case of multiple independent variables, the researchers are mostly interested in how these
two independent variables are together affecting the outcome. Thus, in the example above, researchers could be studying the relationship between education and income and if that relationship is “mediated” by occupation, meaning that the mechanism through which education has an effect on income is occupation. Education does not have a direct effect on Income, the effect is made possible because of Occupation. EducationOccupationIncome
4. REQUIRED which type of research design is it?
 Review slides, readings and quizzes on research design (week 4).
 Focus on cross-sectional research design and longitudinal research design. Note that the large
majority of quantitative social research will fall under one of these two types of design. 4A. OPTIONAL What is the unit of analysis?
Research Methods HSC 1100 | Pal Spring 2022
4
 Review material on research design (week 4). Is the individual the unit of analysis or is it a group or other larger entity?
5. REQUIRED Which dataset and what time-period is used?
 Researchers will explicitly state the time-period they are studying and the dataset they are using – such as the National Health Interview Survey (ARTICLE 1 and ARTICLE 3), years XXX
5A. What kind of data is it? REQUIRED FOR ARTICLE 1 & 3, OPTIONAL FOR ARTICLE 2
 Is it primary data or secondary data, ie. are they newly collecting data for this study or are they
using data already collected by another entity?
 Review material on data (week 6)
6. REQUIRED What is the sample used to answer questions about the population?
 Since researchers cannot access data about each individual in the population they are interested in, they would have based their analysis on a small subset of the population. (Population is same as “who is the study about” that you answered in ITEM 1).
 Review material on sampling (week 5)
 Write here who are the actual “participants” for this study. How many participants were in the
sample?
Example ARTICLE 3.
Two key sources of information to answer this:
(a) From the Abstract: “Individuals in the study were diagnosed with diabetes or borderline diabetes, were eligible to receive SNAP benefits, were prescribed medications, and incurred more than zero US dollars in out-of-pocket medical expenses in the past year”
And
(b) From the Methods section: first two paragraphs in this particular article but generally also, the sample descriiption would be given early on in the methods section, before the different variables’ measurement is described. The amount of specifics will vary study to study.
Using this information, you can write something about the sample, i.e. whose data is used in THIS particular study?
Example: Pooler and Srinivasan (2019) have used a sample of adult civilian non-institutionalized individuals from the U.S. who were over 65 years old, diagnosed with diabetes or borderline diabetes, had household income that made them eligible to receive SNAP benefits, were prescribed medications, and had out-of-pocket medical expenses.
6A. REQUIRED What broad type of sampling is used?
 Review material related to sampling (Week 5).
 Can you identify what kind of sampling is used? Just broad types – probability or non-probability
are perfectly fine!
 OPTIONAL More specific sub-types.
6B. REQUIRED What is the sample size?
 How many participants’ data is observed i.e. forms the basis of the analysis?
 Researchers might explicitly state “sample size” or simply put it in parentheses Example (n=1926 in ARTICLE 2)
7. REQUIRED How are the main dependent and main independent variables measured?
 If researchers are studying education, they can measure it by asking people “what is your highest degree earned” or by asking people “how many years of schooling do you have” or by reports collected from a different source (not the participant).
 Do not go into too much detail.

A. OPTIONAL Which type of measurement is used for the dependent and independent variables?
 Review slides on measurement (Week 3)
 Can you identify for each of the main dependent and independent variables, whether the
measure is nominal, ordinal, ratio or interval?
 Can you identify similarly, if they are discrete or continuous variables?
8. REQUIRED What are some of the controls or adjustment variables?
 Remember that researchers will include a large number of other variables in their study (other than the independent and dependent variables) so that they can identify a relationship between X and Y that will exist even after other things are adjusted for. Review material from Week 7
 If there are more than 5 control variables, you can mention any 5 or simply mention the categories.
Example: Researchers have controlled for many additional factors including demographics (such as age and sex), socio-economic characteristics (such as family income) and other relevant factors (such as location, occupation etc.)
8A. OPTIONAL Why have they “controlled” or adjusted for them?
 Do they mention why they must “control” for other variables?
9. REQUIRED What is the relationship between independent and dependent variables?
 Review the types of relationships (Week 7)
 Is the relationship positive or negative? When X and Y move in the same direction, the
relationship is positive. When X and Y move in the opposite direction, the relationship is negative.
 Is it more complicated than a simple positive/negative? See 9A.
9A. Does it make a difference to the main relationship when other variables are controlled or included in the analysis? Is there a moderator or mediator identified? REQUIRED FOR ARTICLE 2, OPTIONAL FOR ARTICLE 1 AND ARTICLE 3
9B. OPTIONAL Is the relationship causal?
 Have researchers established a causal connection? Did their independent variable cause the
effect on their dependent variable?
 In the large majority of quantitative studies, the researchers will use “association” to describe the
relationship they have identified. An “association” means that the independent and dependent
variables are related BUT it is not possible to say whether that relationship is causal.
 Look again at the research design for clues even if researchers do not explicitly state about
causality.
10. REQUIRED Any one methodological limitation highlighted by the authors
 Researchers can only draw conclusions and make claims when certain assumptions are met. This means that there is a limit to how much they can truly claim with the results obtained. This is true of any quantitative research.
 They might include a separate section on limitations or clarify the limitations elsewhere (methodology section or discussion or conclusion section)

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