Analyzing Basic Applied Research, assignment help

There are very different views of what types of evidence are most credible in evaluating the effectiveness of psychological treatment research. In this discussion you will analyze basic applied psychological research as well as evaluate how researchers applied a research process in the development of specific components. To begin, read the following articles (which can be accessed through the ProQuest database in the Ashford University Library): 

  • “Evidence-Based Practice in Psychology: Implications for Research and Research Training”
  • “Practice-Based Evidence: Back to the Future”
  • “Psychological Treatments: Putting Evidence into Practice and Practice into Evidence”

After reading the articles listed above, select two of them.  Analyze the basic applied research within each of your two selected articles by answering the following questions:

  • What is the main point-of-view in each article? 
  • What are the primary assumptions each author makes?
  • Which author are you inclined to agree with?  Support your choice with scholarly reasoning and cite your evidence. 

You are required to include one peer-reviewed source that was published within the last five years to support your perspective.  You may not use any of the sources that were assigned for this course.  For assistance finding articles view the “Searching for Articles” and the “Peer-Reviewed Articles” tutorials which are available under Tutorials on the Getting Research Help tab at the top of the Ashford University Library homepage.

This assignment is written to explicitly help you engage in critical thinking analyses.

The most common mistake made by students answering this question is to confuse “main points” with “main point-of-view”. You are asked for the latter, not the former. To identify the main points, you simply rewrite a summary of some of the information in the article (lower level thinking). To identify the main point-of-view, you must engage in perspective taking and interpret the main points through the perspective of the authors (higher level critical thinking for a 400-level class).
So, ask yourself: What is the viewpoint of the authors?

You can do it!

To assist you, I have provided the definitions of the two requirements from the criticalthinking.org website. Glossary of Critical Thinking Terms http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/glossary-of-critical-thinking-terms/496#glossary-c 

assumption: A statement accepted or supposed as true without proof or demonstration; an unstated premise or belief. All human thought and experience is based on assumptions. Our thought must begin with something we take to be true in a particular context. We are typically unaware of what we assume and therefore rarely question our assumptions. Much of what is wrong with human thought can be found in the uncritical or unexamined assumptions that underlie it. For example, we often experience the world in such a way as to assume that we are observing things just as they are, as though we were seeing the world without the filter of a point of view. People we disagree with, of course, we recognize as having a point of view. One of the key dispositions of critical thinking is the on-going sense that as humans we always think within a perspective, that we virtually never experience things totally and absolutistically. There is a connection, therefore, between thinking so as to be aware of our assumptions and being intellectually humble.

perspective (point of view): Human thought is relational and selective. It is impossible to understand any person, event, or phenomenon from every vantage point simultaneously. Our purposes often control how we see things. Critical thinking requires that this fact be taken into account when analyzing and assessing thinking. This is not to say that human thought is incapable of truth and objectivity, but only that human truth, objectivity, and insight is virtually always limited and partial, virtually never total and absolute. The hard sciences are themselves a good example of this point, since qualitative realities are systematically ignored in favor of quantifiable realities.

premise: A proposition upon which an argument is based or from which a conclusion is drawn. A starting point of reasoning. For example, one might say, in commenting on someone’s reasoning, “You seem to be reasoning from the premise that everyone is selfish in everything they do. Do you hold this belief?”