Health Research in the News

Guidelines for Online Discussion: Health Research in the News

The purpose of this assignment is to help you develop critical thinking skills and apply critical appraisal skills when reading all publications (including research articles). It is very important to start with a skeptical attitude when interpreting research results, rather than accept as true without critical appraisal. It is very important that you start with the question, “is this true?”, “was the study done correctly?” until evidence proves your suspicion is not true. However, this does not mean you are going to nitpicking irrelevant things.

Each student will find a news article that (1) is published in the last 3 months (2) reports a health related research study, and (3) is relevant to your clinical practice, your community or your family/friends.

In week 7 (3/5-3/11), each student will initiate a discussion thread (40-100 words) that include

(1) The full APA reference with url link to the news article (25%);

APA 6^th edition reference format for newspaper article (rules for authors less than 8: list all; 8 or more: list the first 6 followed by an ellipse and then the last author): Lastname, F. M. (Year, Month Date). Title of article. Title of the newspaper. Retrieved from: URL

APA 7^th edition reference format for newspaper article (rule for multiple authors: list up to 20): Lastname, F. M. (Year, Month Date). Title of article. Title of the newspaper. URL

(2) The reference of the research study being reported in this news (25%); If multiple research studies were cited, choose one or two;

(3) A short description of how the study was done such as research design, sample size, measurements, and data collection (25%); If the news article did not tell us the above information, simply say “not provided in the news” and

(4) major research findings from the cited research study (25%).

In week 8 (3/12-3/18), each student will respond to ONE of the other students’ thread (a minimum of 50 words). No thread can be commented by more than two students. This means you should respond to a different thread if the one you want to comment on has already had two replies. Your response/comment should include:

(1) any issues, such as chance, bias, limitations, or confounding in the cited research study that may cause the research findings less credible, accurate or valid (70%) and

(2) the meaning of this research study for clinical practice, or how it is relevant to or will influence nursing practice/health care/individuals (30%).

Additional guideline for week 7 and 8: You are not required to read the original research article. However, if you feel you cannot make your argument clear without reading the full text, it’s better to go over it and use the information in the original article to clarify your points.