Unit 3: Final Task

Research articles: Results, discussions, and conclusions sections analysed

In research articles (RA), the results, discussions and recommendations sections are naturally descriptive. Not only should they reveal the researchers’ ability to summarise the study in question and to state a problem and evaluate its solution through sound arguments but they should also aim at persuading the readers of the significance of the conclusions reached (Pintos & Crimi, 2010). It is the purpose of this paper to compare and analyse the results, discussions and conclusions/recommendations sections of Yang’s (2009) article on the use of blogs to enhance critical reflection among student teachers, and Johnson, Lewis Priestley and Johnson’s (2008) article on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

The Results section of a RA should basically report the outcomes of the study in an objective manner, without delving into interpretations, which are saved for the Discussion. In this latter section, reference should be made to both the purpose of the study and the initial questions or hypotheses which it aims to answer (Pintos & Crimi, 2010). As for the Recommendations section, it should make reference to the introduction, while providing direction on what should be done based on the conclusions which were arrived at. However, the three sections sometimes overlap and might be blended into two sections. That is the case of the two articles analysed.

Johnson et al. (2008) provide detailed information of the results in five tables which are embedded in the text and which are properly referred to. The first of these tables reflects the participants’ knowledge of basic CAM concepts and common CAM therapies, whereas the other four illustrate the data more exhaustively by scrutinising them according to the degree of influence that certain demographic values, namely sex, education level, race/ethnicity, and employment setting, could have on the knowledge that these participants have on CAM. The fact that the tables are not included in a separate section seemingly facilitates clearer comprehension of the qualitative and quantitative results which are described in-text and which indirectly, though not completely at this stage, supply the answers to the questions posed in the introduction.

For his part, Yang (2009) entitles Results a section in which both the results and their interpretations are addressed. Unlike Johnson et al. (2008), this author directly refers to the three questions which were put forward in the previous section. The author illustrates the data gathered in two tables which are embedded in the text and which relate to a modified version of Ho and Richards’ (1993) framework for qualitative research which is included in the appendix (Yang, 2009). The two tables are organised into five categories and they provide statistics as to the student teachers’ discussions on the blog, whether these are critical or descriptive, and the degree in which the students’ posts vary after the instructors’ interventions. Yang (2009) may have decided to display the information in this manner so that readers can compare the hypothesis and the outcomes without having to move back or forth in the text.

Pertaining the Discussions section, Yang (2009) accounts for the outcomes together with the presentation of the results, as mentioned above, when he states that “there is evidence that the students were more comfortable critiquing themselves than ... others” and when he explains how the degree of involvement of the instructors increased the student teachers’ frequency of critical reflections (Yang, 2009, p. 17). Moreover, in the same section he makes reference to other authors’ findings to give reasons for his own. On the other hand, Johnson et al. (2008) makes use of a differentiated section to interpret the data in-depth and they provide a tentative evaluation of the apparent gap in knowledge which health educators reflected with regards to CAM.

By means of expressions such as “the results of the study reveal” (p. 70), “[t]his phenomenon indicates that”, “this finding could suggest that” (p. 75), among others, Johnson et al. (2008) provide interpretations of the results obtained and which are depicted in the tables and in the text in the previous section. As for the grammar, while the simple past tense was used in the Results section in both articles, only in the medical one was the present tense used to describe the findings. Yang (2009) appears to have mixed the tenses and this might be due to the fact that the two sections were blended in one.

As for the conclusions arrived at, Johnson et al. (2008) include them under a subheading in the Discussions section, namely Limitations and Recommendations and also in a separate section: Translation to Health Education Practice. In them, the authors provide guidance on how the surveys should be carried out in future so that the results thrown are approached more cautiously and they also recommend the incorporation of information about CAM into the curriculum of the various levels of medical students. Yang (2009) addresses future repercussions of the research outcomes in the Implications section, making reference to the potential utilization of the student teachers’ newly gained knowledge into broader English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts.

All in all, the two articles provide information about the studies in question, supported with sensible evidence from the analyses carried out. While Johnson et al. (2008) may have failed in providing proper stratification of participants in some cases, suggestions are provided as to how to approach the study henceforth. Additionally, the hypotheses and questions proposed in both Introduction sections are duly answered and solutions to them appear to have been evaluated appropriately. Most importantly, the recommendations which the authors of both articles suggest seem to be persuasive enough to convince the readers of both articles that the whole study was worth it.

References

Johnson, P., Lewis Priestley, J., & Johnson, R. D. (2008). A survey of complementary and alternative medicine knowledge among health educators in the United States. American Journal of Health Education, 39(2), 66-79. Retrieved April 23, 2010, from ERIC database. (EJ795575)

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010). Unit 3: The research article: Results, discussions, and conclusions. Universidad CAECE: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Retrieved April 26, 2010, from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=4692

Yang, S.H. (2009). Using blogs to enhance critical reflection and community of practice. Educational Technology & Society, 12(2), 11-21. Retrieved September 5, 2009, from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar

Unit 2: Final Task

Research articles: A comparative analysis

Research articles (RAs) are primarily aimed at expounding an individual’s critical thinking and understanding of a certain topic validated by acknowledged and renowned authors’ expertise (Pintos & Crimi, 2010a). There are at least eleven parts to RAs, namely title, abstract, acknowledgements, introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussions, recommendations, references and appendixes. It is the purpose of this paper to analyse and compare the Introduction, Literature Review and Methods sections of Tekinarslan’s (2008) article on the educational use of blogs, and Johnson, Lewis Priestley and Johnson’s (2008) article on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

Introductions in RAs are meant to attract the reader’s attention and are consequently structured in a general-specific manner following Swales and Feak’s (1994) Create a Research Space (CARS) model. According to the authors, the information included in the introduction is organised in three moves: creating a research space, establishing a niche and occupying the niche (cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010b, p. 27). Writers analyse previous research on a certain area and raise questions to demonstrate that there is a gap in the literature reviewed. Subsequently, they try to occupy this gap by indicating what the purpose of their present research is.

Tekinarslan (2008) divides the introduction into three subsections which together illustrate the moves in the CARS model. The author shows the relevance of his research by drawing upon the popularity that weblogs have gained in the educational field: “[T]here has been increasing interest in applying blogs in education in recent years” (Godwin-Jones, 2003, as cited in Tekinarslan, 2008, p. 402). To that end, the present perfect tense is used in the first part of Move I and again when Achterman (2006), Godwin-Jones (2003), Ray (2006), Winder (2006) and Williams and Jacobs (2004) are cited to refer to areas of inquiry related to the topic being researched. Moreover, the author employs the present simple tense to refer to what has been found on the field: “According to the literature about blogs ... [they] have considerable potential for communication and educational purposes” (p. 403).

Subsequent to this statement, Tekinarslan (2008) establishes the gap: “However, most studies about blogs in the literature were conducted in English speaking countries” (p. 403). He introduces this second move with a negative opening beginning with the connector however. The third move is outlined in a previous paragraph when the author states that “[t]he purpose of [the] study is to report on experiences of an instructor and his undergraduate students in ... Turkey, who applied blogs in their teaching learning environment” (p. 402). Furthermore, he indicates the findings of his study in the third of the three subsections, where he introduces the participants, the setting, and the outcomes that the instructor expected to achieve.

For their part, Johnson et al. (2008) entitle the introduction to their article “Background” (p. 66) and they include only one subheading: Purpose, possibly to make it stand out from the rest of this section. They make use of the same grammatical structures found in the educational article in order to introduce the significance of their research: “In recent years, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has gained popularity in the US” (p. 66). They make reference to previous research by concentrating on published surveys and studies: “Published surveys have revealed” (p. 66). Worth mentioning is the fact that, since this article belongs to the medical field, the citation style used is American Medical Association (AMA) and not American Psychological Association (APA), as in Tekinarlsan’s (2008) work. In view of that, acknowledgement of such information is only provided in the references, with items listed numerically in the order in which they appear in the text.

In a succeeding paragraph, Johnson et al. (2008) move on to indicate the gap in the literature reviewed: “While there is some scientific evidence regarding the effects of a limited number of CAM practices, therapies and products .... [t]o date, a limited number of studies have examined knowledge of CAM therapies among health professionals in the US” (pp. 66-67). The fact that some issue has been left aside becomes apparent not only from the selection of the word limited but also in the use of the contrastive conjunction while in a previous sentence. This exemplifies the use of concessive discourse markers that Pintos and Crimi (2010b) make reference to: “The most common way to indicate a gap [in Move II of the CARS model] is to use a negative opening such as however” (p. 53).

The aim that the article about CAM intends to achieve is clearly outlined in the subsection created for that end: “The purpose of this study was to develop a baseline measure of how much health educators in the United States know about CAM” (Johnson et al., 2008, p. 67). The authors additionally pose research questions to gain insights on “whether CAM education programs are needed for health educators in the United States” (Johnson et al., 2008, p. 67). Additionally, they emphasise that their study was based on the knowledge of ten common CAM therapies, information obtained from the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and described in the table provided in the article.

By and large, it is in the introduction sections of both articles that specific terminology is defined. Tekinarslan (2008) conveniently defines the word blog in the first paragraph by quoting Holtz (2006) and by describing what a typical blog consists of in Guenther’s (2005) words. This formal definition (Pintos & Crimi, 2010b) classifies a blog into the category “web publishing software” and addresses its use as well (Tekinarslan, 2008, p. 402). Similarly, Johnson et al. (2008) explain the acronym CAM in the very first sentence and further pinpoint the distinction between alternative and complementary medicine in the following one. Noteworthy is the fact that there is not a distinctive section for the literature review in neither article. Both are embedded in Move I of the introduction, as referred to above. This might be due to the fact that while research on the areas in general (blogs and CAM) is relevant and abundant, there might not be enough bibliography about the specific concerns that the authors established in their purposes.

With regard to the Methods section, its main aim is to explain the processes involved in the collection and analysis of the data. Both articles make use of passive voice all throughout and they are also divided into subsections, in which the subheadings are correctly aligned along the left margin according to both AMA (Scribe, 2009) and APA (2001). In Johnson et al. (2008), information about the setting and participants is supplied in both the Design and Sample subsection and the Data Collection one. Nevertheless, table 2, which provides the definition of ten common CAM therapies, should appear in the appendix and not in the main text, in order to avoid distracting the reader. The same is true of the other six tables which are included in the same article.

Materials are addressed to in the second subsection of the Methods section in the article on CAM whereas the last subheading, Data Analysis, does not include detailed steps of what was to be done in the study. In fact, the authors seem to presume certain background knowledge that a non-specialised reader might not handle, situation which might deprive proper understanding of the procedures carried out when collecting and analysing the information. As regards layout, the word methods is flush left, in opposition to AMA requirements (Scribe, 2009), which establishes that first level headings should be centred. Moreover, heading caps and not all caps should have been used while the use of bold font is optional – though the writer has to be consistent in bolded formatting – according to the same style for writing medical papers.

In Tekinarslan’s (2008) article, the Methods heading is incorrectly left-aligned rather than centred, as commands APA (2001), but it is bolded and written in upper case and lower case, as this style requires. The sections of this article are: Participants, Data Collection and Data Analyses Procedures. The information provided in this text is more accurately organised and more complete than in the medical article: Participants are described in the homonymous subsection and the material is described in the second section by means of questions. Still, these should have been found in an appendix rather than on the main body of the article. As for the procedures, appropriate use of connectors and passive voice was made to explain the different steps which were followed.

All in all, the two articles compared seem to fulfil most of the organisational patterns established by Swales and Feak (1994) in the introduction and the methods sections. In both papers the purpose is clearly outlined and reference is made to previous research in order to establish the gap which serves as the starting point of Tekinarslan’s (2008) and Johnson et al.’s (2008) studies. Moreover, the setting, participants and tools to be used are addressed to in both studies while the procedure seems to be deficient in the medical article as it seems to presuppose that the readers will be acquainted with the software mentioned to analyse the data. In connection with the language utilized, correct application of verb tenses in the different sections, passive voice and connectors made the texts run smoothly and hence be readable.

References

American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Johnson, P., Lewis Priestley, J., & Johnson, R. D. (2008). A survey of complementary and alternative medicine knowledge among health educators in the United States. American Journal of Health Education, 39(2), 66-79. Retrieved April 23, 2010, from ERIC database. (EJ795575)

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010a). Unit 1: Defining concepts in research. Universidad CAECE: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Retrieved March 27, 2010, from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=4690

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010b). Unit 2: The research article: Introduction, literature review and methods sections. Universidad CAECE: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Retrieved April 10, 2010, from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=4691

Scribe, A. (2009). AMA Style Stat! for Research Papers. Retrieved May 8, 2010, from http://www.docstyles.com/amastat.htm

Tekinarslan, E. (2008). Blogs: A qualitative investigation into an instructor and undergraduate students’ experiences. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 24(4), 402-412. Retrieved September 5, 2009, from http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet24/tekinarslan.html