critiquing a research article.docx

8/17/2019 critiquing a research article.docx

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Critiquing a research article of an examination of speech reception thresholds

measured in a simulated reverberant cafeteria environment

The paper I am critiquing is a quantitative research article, after reading the article I found

some positive and negative factors about the paper. First of all the title of the article does

explain the experiment and research going to be carried out, but after reading the article the

title misses out on key information such as the second testing environment. The title of the

research article also does not explain or makes clear any links to audiology. This research

article states no hypothesis as it is not clearly identified but the article does imply a

hypothesis but it is not directly stated. The problem of the article is not clearly stated in the

title as it does not explain the cause or effect of the problem being looked at, but is briefly

stated in the abstract. The problem of the research article is adequately narrowed down into

a researchable problem as the researchers have made it clear that they will be testing the

group of people in a reverberant cafeteria and a laboratory. A positive factor about testing in

a cafeteria is that the researchers have thought to do the testing in a reallife situation which

people with hearing losses will go through all the time. I think the problem is significant

enough to form a formal research effort as others in the past have conducted this study

before, for this research to be conducted it would generally cost less and would not be time

consuming. Also when the study was conducted in the past totally different results were

obtained as this time the study was conducted in reallife situations and not simple

situations. I believe the relationship between the identified problem and previous research is

clearly described and the abstract does offer a clear overview of the study and the research

problem. The sample si!e and methodology are clearly stated and findings of the study are

mentioned briefly. There are ethical considerations for this study we have to think about, for

example when choosing the sample si!e the researchers rewarded the participants with a

reward and also paid them some money as a way of saying thank you.I think the research article is logically organised and a lot of good points have been made

but, the points made are better being somewhere else in the article. An example of this is

that when the researchers explain the aim of the study and the method they are going to do,

they should have mentioned this earlier in the article as the aim and method are very

important for the reader to know and understand what the study is about. The aim and

method were mentioned half way through the paper which can confuse the reader. I am

aware I said the research article was well organised, however I felt as though the data was

not presented well and therefore made it more difficult to go through the paper and

understand it, I found that the article drifted away a lot from the main purpose and topic. All

of the above mentioned could be improved by "ust placing the important and relevant

information at the start of the article. In the article there is a clear description of theprocedures and this was briefly described in the abstract, if any other researchers were to try

and conduct this study they would be able to get similar results. The researchers present

that there are gaps in knowledge about the research problem because previous researchers

conducted the study but did not come to a final decision. In the research article important

relevant references are included which is a big help for people wanting to repeat the study,

the researchers referenced the questionnaire they gave out to the group of people before

they took a hearing test. The researchers also referenced any previous studies and previous

researcher#s names, again this would make it less difficult for another person to come and

conduct the same study.

I believe the theoretical framework is forced in many areas as it drifts away from the mainpoints like I said earlier. I also found that the researchers would get more reliable results



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when the testing the group of people in the cafeteria as the environment is a reallife

situation, when testing in the lab they will not get reliable results because the group of

people are not going to be in that sort of situation all the time or at all. The independent and

dependent variables are not defined straight away, also the independent variables change

and this is the changes of the environment as the researchers test the group of people in the

cafeteria then the laboratory. The dependent variable does not change and this is the actualhearing test being taken by the group of people. A factor I have realised is that when testing

the group of people with the hearing aids in, their hearing aids will all be on a different setting

as they don#t all have the same hearing. As I mentioned earlier the research article states no

hypothesis as it is not clearly identified but the article does imply a hypothesis but it is not

directly stated. As for the sampling I think it is an adequate si!e and is not, this is because

fortysix people were chosen, $% of them had normal hearing and the other &% had hearing

losses. I think for this study to be a bit fairer they should have chosen half with normal

hearing and half with hearing losses. The sample si!e is and is not representative of the

defined population. I believe the method for selection of the sample was not appropriate

because, the group of people chosen were between $%'( and the mean age was )$. This

tells us that most of the people chosen were of an older age, as we know the older a persongets the worse the hearing would be compared to someone who is young. For this reason I

think the sampling is biased in the chosen method acknowledged. The criteria for selecting

the sample is clearly identified as it is a specific criteria, because it is a specific criteria and a

laboratory experiment it cannot be generalised.

I think the research design was adequately described, for example the way the researchers

planned out and described the method was good, as they tested the people with hearing

aids first then tested the stimuli. *ut as I read on I found it became difficult to understand as I

could no longer grasp the idea of the design being used. I believe the design is appropriate

for the research problem because, if this design was used again by another researcher

wanting to conduct the same study they would get reliable results. This is because theresults obtained when doing the study this time were similar and they were all in correlation.

The research design does address issues related to the internal and external validity of the

study because, what was said in the abstract about the method of the study and also other

things were actually done by the researchers. +o what they said they were going to do was

done and they did not stray away from the main purpose of the study. I think the data

collection is appropriate for the study as the results were all reliable, as you can see from

figure '. Figure ' is scatterplot which shows individual +Ts in the complex environment

against +Ts in the standard environment, it showed that all the plots were going up on the

solid line. The data collection instruments are also described adequately as the researchers

talk clearly about the software programme being used to trigger the next set of questions for

the group of people, the measurement tools have reasonable validity and reliability too.

I believe the results section is clearly and logically organised because the figures received

from doing the study were clearly stated and also diagrams and tables were used to make it

easier, but the tables and figures were not easy to grasp and understand. The results list the

experimental data then go along to further explain on how some variables may have

interfered, the results relate back to the research purpose throughout the study and also

address the ob"ective and sub"ective measures. Also the statistical test is the correct one for

answering the research question. The researcher clearly distinguishes between actual

findings and interpretations, as he mentions that in previous studies it was shown that -I

listeners received less benefit from listening in the dips greatly because of the sound of the

masker signals. These interpretations are based on the results of the current study because,

the researcher explains how in the current study the -I listeners received more benefit from

listening in the dips. All findings are discussed in relation to the previous investigations and



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to the conceptualtheoretical framework because researchers have included in their report,

ideas and findings from past studies. All generalisations are warranted and defended but

because the reverberant cafeteria is simulated the researchers have the ability to change

around a few things for their own satisfaction, also they can change anything to suit and

meet the needs of the experiment being carried out. If this study wasn#t done in a simulated

cafeteria and was instead done in a real life one then problems would have come up and theresults would have definitely have been different.

/imitations of the results have been identified because the researcher explains that one of

the limitations is the environment, he mentions that it was a downfall that the study could not

be conducted in any other environment. If the study was conducted in other environments

then they would have had more reliable results to work with. The researcher discusses

implications of the results as well, as I mentioned before one of the implications is the testing

of the different environments. ecommendations have been mentioned and identified for

future research as the researchers advise other investigators in the article to add realism to

the acoustic signals as this could improve the results and the ecological validity. The

researcher also mentions to combine ecological modifications to achieve a relevant outcomemeasure.

0verall the conclusion they made is "ustified, as they state what they are going to do and

stuck with that. Although this was done they did move away from the sub"ect at certain times

in the article. The researchers did say they were going to provide a starting point for

investigators who wanted to also carry out this study, they achieved this and now

investigators will find it less difficult to increase the realworld relevance of laboratory based

speech tests.

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critiquing a research article.docx