Dig Deeper Assignment
What’s the Point? Compare and contrast how some psychological phenomenon (a “result” or “finding”) was written about in some “pop psychology” source to how it was written about in the original scientific research article that inspired the pop psych source. “Pop psychology” refers to non peer-reviewed summaries of scientific research, such as undergraduate textbooks, news articles, books, movies, TV shows, podcasts, or Tiktoks. Was there any important information that was lost between the original research article (which you should look up and read) and the way the research was reported for a broader audience? Did the news article or original research article make any claims that you don’t think are warranted?
How Do I Get Started? We will work on this throughout the first half of the semester. Take this one step at a time!
- Find a specific psychological “finding” or “result” as reported in a pop psychology source. Psychology findings are commonly written about in major news outlets like the StudyFinds.org, New York Times, Vox Media, Time Magazine, Vice, Buzzfeed, or podcasts. You could also find a claim as reported in TikTok, Instagram post, or whatever other social media source you are finding. The more specific the better; something like “A recent study from the School of Life found that taking classes at DVC leads to higher psychological well-being” would be more specific than “research over thirty decades says childhood trauma is related to adult well-being.”
- Find the specific research article that inspired this “pop psych” summary. Use Google Scholar, campus library resources, or something like sci-hub or anna’s archive. If you can’t access an article using the library services or Google Scholar, and don’t want to use one of the alternative sources, come to office hours and I can help you track it down.
- Throughout the semester, we’ll learn the skills needed to critique these two articles. Specifically, you will evaluate (a) how well the pop psychology source captures the actual methods used by the research article, and (b) how well the scientific research article captures “the truth”.
Reminder: USE YOUR OWN VOICE. To copy text or ideas from another source without appropriate reference is plagiarism. Fine to use other sources (including AI) to review or learn about key ideas, but you need to reference these sources and explain what you learned in your own voice. Students who plagiarize or use AI tools without attribution / as a replacement for their own work will receive a zero on the assignment and be reported to the Office of Student Conduct. Happy to chat if you have questions about what constitutes appropriate AI!
Below is the Grading Rubric. This paper is worth 20% of your grade in the course. There’s no page limit for the paper; just answer the questions. Short, simple sentences are GREAT. Please label each section to help me grade; thanks!
| 3 points | 2 points | 1 point | 0 points | |
| Introduction. Describe the research “finding” that was reported in the “pop psych” source (include the link). Who is the audience for this article? Who are the authors, and what biases might they have? Then, find the original research article and include the citation in APA format. Evaluate the article - how influential does it appear to be (what’s the impact factor of the journal and how many times has it been cited?) Who are the authors, and what biases might these authors have (and why)? | student completed all parts of this section | student had minor error(s) or omission(s) | student had major error(s) or omission(s) | student did not include this section |
| Participants. What was the sample size, and how were the participants recruited? Who is the population for this study, and what are some of the characteristics of the sample? Do you think this was a representative or biased sample (and why / why not?) Did the “pop psych” or research article report the sample size or acknowledge any potential sampling biases? Finally, how might the results change if a different sample were studied? (Be specific!) | student completed all parts of this section | student had a minor error or omission | student had a major error or omission | student did not include this section |
| Methods. Did the researchers design an experiment Were the methods the researchers used experimental (did they manipulate variables) or correlational (did they observe or measure variables?). Did the news article accurately reflect this (or did it make it seem like there was a causal relationship when no experiment was conducted?) | student completed all parts of this section | student had a minor error or omission | student had a major error or omission | student did not include this section |
| Measures. How did the researchers measure the variables (e.g., did they use self-reports or observations?) Do you think this was a valid and reliable way to study the phenomenon? Why / why not? Make sure to use specific terms of reliability and validity here (e.g., self-insight bias; test-retest reliability; ) | student completed all parts of this section | student had a minor error or omission | student had a major error or omission | student did not include this section |
| Results. What did the “pop psych” article report about the relationship between the variables? Did it comment on the “effect size” or “significance level” of the result at all? What does the research article say about these statistics? Does it seem like there’s a strong or weak relationship between the two variables? [Do your best to interpret; these statistics can be tricky to understand or interpret.] | student completed all parts of this section | student had a minor error or omission | student had a major error or omission | student did not include this section |
| Discussion. Did the “pop psych” article discuss any of these limitations that the researchers wrote about in the discussion section? Do you feel like the authors sufficiently acknowledged all the limitations of their study? Overall, do you feel like the “pop psych” article was a valid representation of the actual data? Why / why not? | student completed all parts of this section | student had a minor error or omission | student had a major error or omission | student did not include this section |