Perceived Social Support, Individual Mental Health, and Risky Health Behaviors

Do the entire project on my own.
Midterm Project
Journal Article Review
For this final assignment, you will work in a group of FOUR to evaluate a research article published in a leading peer-reviewed journal that addresses topics related to positive psychology.
STEP 1: Choosing an Article
The criteria for choosing an article to review are as follows:
a) It must be a substantial length empirical study (not a review or a theoretical paper).
b) It must be relatively recent - been published in the last 5-7 years.
c) It must be published in a reputable psychological journal (peer-reviewed).
d) The topic of the article must be directly related to something we have discussed in class.
i. Examples include psychological well-being, resilience, positive/negative affect, personal goals, spirituality, self-regulation/control, virtues…etc.
ii. Choose a topic that is interesting to your group.
e) Your article must be approved by myself or one of the TAs before proceeding with your project.
STEP 2: The Article Review Project
Once your article has been chosen and approved, your group is to complete the following assignment. Your assignment should be typed and in paragraph form. The group should share the writing equally and collaboratively. That is, you can each write different sections of the project, but you should be checking in with each other and making sure that each group member understands ALL aspects of the project and you should be critiquing each other’s writing as you go.
a) The Introduction – this section should be approximately 2 pages (double spaced, 12 point font)
i. Briefly describe the study – relevant variables, hypotheses, type of study (longitudinal, correlational etc.)
ii. Identify one main theory/concept that informed the hypotheses of the study.
i. Find TWO supporting articles that further explain this main theory and describe this theory in more detail. Describe how the theory informed the hypotheses in the article you are assessing. Use APA formatting to cite references in this section.
**Note: The Introduction is the ONLY section of the final project that you need to use APA citations in text.**
b) Methods – this section should be approximately 1 page
i. What did you learn from this section? Who were the subjects? How were the relevant variables assessed? How were data collected? Etc.
ii. Use your own words to describe the Methods. Avoid technical jargon unless you can then summarize what the jargon means. If you’re having trouble, please ask us to help you.
c) Results – this section should be approximately 1 page
i. What did the results of the study show? Were the main hypotheses supported or not supported?
ii. IMPORTANT: You are not going to understand much of the results section (unless you’ve taken advanced statistic courses). So, what I’m asking you to do is summarize what you can understand, use your own words, and use plain language. Avoid technical jargon. You DO NOT need to report specific numbers. Just speak generally about what was found.
d) Discussion – this section should be approximately 2 pages
i. How did the authors interpret the results? What limitations did the authors point to in their study?
ii. Identify TWO new future studies/research questions that can be explored based on this study. This is your chance to REACH for applications to this research. For example, if we learned something new about resilience…where can we apply that? Who can that help? What else do we need to understand?
iii. As always, avoid technical jargon, use your own words, and be clear in your language.
e) Reference Page – this is included as your last page of the project
i. Use APA style to list the references you used for the project (usually, this includes the article you are summarizing and the two articles you pulled for the Introduction section).
APA Style:
Use APA style for in-text citations (for the intro section of the assignment) and for a reference page. The page below is a good resource.
https://owl(dot)purdue(dot)edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
STEP 3: Turning in the Project
1. Only one group member needs to turn the project in on Canvas.
2. Upload your file with your completed analysis of your articles. Please include names of everyone in the group.
3. You will also need to upload a full PDF of the article you analyzed.
**Note: Plagiarism from ONE group member affects ALL group members.**