Lesson Plan: Diagramming Research Reviews
Psychology
The main paper assignment for students will be in the form of a research review in Developmental Psychology. These articles are written in the form of research reviews of quite specific areas, always with an objective of not only bringing readers up to date on the area but also organizing the particular area so as to facilitate and motivate needed research.
In this in-class exercise, which will last from 45-60 minutes, we will diagram (or analyze) some sample reviews of research in areas relevant to the content of our course and discuss how these articles are good models for the students’ own review papers. We will also discuss aspects of the articles that are especially well done or well written and aspects that might be improved upon.
- Students will be assigned to read two short research review articles before coming to class.
- The instructor will outline the parts of a good research review.
- The class will be broken into two groups, and each group will diagram and discuss one of the articles and then present its results to the entire class.
- The class will then have a general discussion of each article and conclude with some specific principles that have been learned from these examples.
The review articles that will likely be used are:
Ainsworth, M.D.S. (1979). Infant-mother attachment. American Psychologist, 34, 932-937.
Hofer, M.A. (2006). Psychological roots of early attachment. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 84-88.
Malcolm W. Watson & Michael J. Sheehan
Developed at Brandeis University through a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation
Faculty Spotlight
"I learned to use three particularly valuable practices to teach writing.
"First, by talking about writing in every class session and discussing some pointers and at the same time stressing to students that we are all on a continual course to becoming better writers, I saw a change in the students in that they internalized this same attitude toward writing and began focusing on making continual progress. This became one of their goals as well.
"Second, by using concrete examples, many provided by students, we worked through many aspects important to clear writing.
"Third, by sticking with one large paper that students wrote in pieces and then continually revised through multiple drafts, they focused on the process of writing and working on continual improvement."
Professor Malcolm Watson