Critical Analysis in Psychology: the Essential Guide to Interrogating Published Research

'This book is the fruit of Alex Shepherd's remarkable teaching experience in one of the most prestigious universities in the world. This publication will certainly become the main reference for science students at BSc, MSc and PhD levels.”Roberto Filippi, PhD, University College London'I highly recommend this book as essential reading for psychology students at all levels from undergraduate to PhD. It provides a friendly and engaging guide to developing critical evaluation skills through the use of clear and accessible examples that capture the reader's interest.'Dr Elisa Lewis, Senior Lecturer, London South Bank University “Alex Shepherd offers an accessible forensic filleting of published research articles, with helpful how-to guides showing what questions to ask and (more importantly) what the answers mean.”Gina Rippon, Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Neuroimaging, Author of The Gendered BrainIf something is published, does that mean it's true?Critical Analysis in Experimental Psychology encourages the critical reading and analysis of psychological research reports and shows how design principles and statistics are applied. A.J. Shephard empowers you to read between the lines of any published study and draw your own conclusions. Using synopses of published research articles as examples, the book shows how to work out if summary claims made by authors or the media accurately reflect an experiment's real findings. Through guided analysis of both quantitative and qualitative real-world research, you will learn to:•Review research articles comprehensively and critically•Understand the rationale, logic, and purpose of an article•Identify the hypotheses (whether stated or unstated)•Describe and assess the suitability of the research methods used•Analyse the implied interpretation of the results,•Become an active – rather than a passive – reader of scientific articles.This book gives new insight into published research articles, helping you feel less like a student and more like a researcher. The critical skills learned will help you to navigate through the confusing science messages we are exposed to through all types of media.Dr A.J. Shepherd has over 20 years of experience teaching Critical Analysis. She is a Reader in Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, UK and since 2004 she has run the third year Critical Analysis course, which she also designed.