In psychology, students are often asked to show evidence of “critical evaluation” in their work. Many students find this difficult, and even those who are told they do it well, often do not understand what it is they are doing.
The crucial word is evaluate: to measure the value of something
Things to think about:
Who is writing?
- Their expertise in the field
- Do they have their own agenda that might make them biased, i.e a researcher arguing for the legalization of cannabis vs a researcher working with drug abuse substances?
—> Think about WHY? is someone writing this and how that might influence - When was this written? Try to obtain up-to-date references, but if you are reading a key article from some time ago, remember that ideas evolve over time
- Where was the work published? Newspaper articles tend to be written for a non-specialist audience.
- Where was the work done? Could there be any cultural influences?
What evidence is used to support the arguments made?
- Sometimes, an author will make a claim that is completely unsupported and will offer no evidence whatsoever to back it up
- Alternatively, if it’s is supported the evidence that supports it should be some sort of scientific study
When analysing the evidence
- Be careful, many students identify methodological problems with research, without really considering the implications of these problems. Think about how the design faults affected the results obtained, if at all, and say why they are problematic in each particular instance.
These are just a few tips on critically evaluating research, However, practice makes perfect, reading other researchers’ critical evaluation of papers or simply having a good look at the discussion and limitations section of a paper can be of great help.