LITERATURE REVIEW: Review Article

SCIENCE EDUCATION

Each review article critique should include the following elements:

1. Educational Context 

What is the central concern of the author?  The educational context of an article includes both what piece the author has addressed and what it is a piece of (remember the childhood game of telling where we live by street, city, county, state, nation, continent, planet, solar system, galaxy).

2. Organization

You should find or construct a schema that helps explain the relationship between the articles referred to in the review.  This is not simply an issue of "from big ideas to little," because the review is focused on the specifics of your research topic.  Rather, you are to decipher and communicate the logical organization used by the author of the review, and the reasons for this logical organization. (This is not to say that you cannot include "the big idea" to frame your review, only that it is not the focus of this section of the assignment.) 

3. Integration

Discuss the link between the articles referenced in the review.  Compare and contrast the articles selected by the author.  Suggested considerations:  Do the data show the same patterns?  If they agree, how does one study strengthen the conclusions of the others?  If they differ, what are the reasons?  Age/ability/ethnicity/gender of subjects?  Varying treatment time?  Problems with the quality of the research in one of the studies?  

4. Conclusions and Limitations

What do the findings mean?  What do we know now that we didn't know before?  Were conclusions drawn spuriously?  Are we convinced by the author's conclusions?  Do you have an alternative explanation of the data that the authors didn't consider?

5. Implications and Links To Your Research Topic

What are the implications of this study for teaching practice, research, and policy?  How does it inform your future project? Argue persuasively! 

Reference the article you selected to review using APA format!

Your review of a review article will be evaluated using the last three facets from the Wiggins & McTighe rubric on the Six Facets of Understanding: perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. (Understanding by Design, p. 77).  Notice that while the first three sections of your paper must be valid, your chance to provide your mark of excellence comes mainly in sections 4 and 5.

Submit your paper electronically using the drop box function of the CourseInfo web site.

Dr. Nancy J. Pelaez, and Dr. Barbara Gonzalez, California State University, Fullerton
Copyright © 2000.  All rights reserved.
Revised: January 26, 2001.