Besides being able to locate scholarly sources of information, graduate learners are expected to become information literate
Summary and Analysis of Research Articles
Besides being able to locate scholarly sources of information, graduate learners are expected to become information literate, which includes being able to evaluate information in scientific literature. This is done to determine if the information is actually useful and valid for their research/essay projects and if it is trustworthy and accurate. Generally, sources of information are evaluated on their purpose, timeliness, authority, reliability, and coverage.
For example, it is understood that a source whose purpose is to sell something is more likely to either exaggerate or de-emphasize certain information to enhance its persuasive appeal. Sources that focus on a very narrow aspect of an issue may not be useful for supporting broader generalizations. Sources that refuse to acknowledge competing viewpoints can be quite biased.
For this assignment, you will complete two parts: (1) select and describe a key health care issue that interests you and describe why this issue is important and (2) select three research articles related to the health care issue you selected and complete a summary and analysis of each research article.
Note that in Topic 4, you will use these articles to develop your Health Care Issue Essay assignment.
Part 1: Compose a narrative of 750-1,000 words that includes the following information:
- Select and describe a key health care issue.
- Discuss the importance of the key health care issue.
Part 2: Find three scholarly articles related to the key health care issue you selected.
Complete a summary and analysis of each article that addresses the following information:
- Describe the purpose of the study.
- Describe the results or findings from the study.
- Review the conclusion the authors draw from the findings and analyze if the authors addressed the purpose of the study properly.
- Discuss whether there was sufficient information, not enough information, irrelevant or unnecessary information, etc.
- Address any areas of the study that could be improved. Consider factors such as sample size, confounding factors, potential errors, limitations, etc.
- Describe if the interpretation of the results was valid and provide a rationale. Consider whether there was a possible alternate explanation for the results of the study, if additional research could build on these findings, or whether this research builds upon previous research.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.
Sample Expert Answer and Explanation
Summary and Analysis of Research Articles
Part 1: Narrative
Description of the Health Care Issue
The complete well-being of an adolescent depends in part on their mental health status. Unfortunately, adolescents are vulnerable to psychiatric issues because they are in stage in life in which they face peer pressure, and struggle with emotional and social issues. Some of these issues include suicidal tendencies, anxiety disorders and abuse of behavior-altering substances (Bozzola et al., 2022). Lately, the impact of the social media use on adolescents’ mental health has become a critical area of focus in discussions that involve the exploration of the causes of adolescents’ psychiatric issues.
While people traditionally associated addiction with drugs, the social media has led to the emergence of a new form of addiction in which users of social media excessively use the social media platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook and X. While these platforms are created to support socialization of users, they tend to expose users to the risk of addiction. In fact, they eliminate the need for individuals to have physical interactions, limiting their ability to physically share emotions, which essentially make it difficult for them to receive adequate social support.
Excessive use of social media causes poor sleep outcomes, exposing patients to the risk of developing various forms of mental health issues including anxiety disorders. Effective cognitive functioning, which affects various aspects of mental health, depends on the quality of one’s sleep. In patients with social media dependency problem, getting quality sleep is difficult considering that it causes sleep deprivation. Lack of stable moods is the other consequence of this form of addiction (Mougharbel et al., 2023).
The exposure to the social media content coupled by online bullying can cause and exacerbate mental health disorders like anxiety disorders. The pressure of seeing people display lavish lifestyle can result to stress, altering one’s emotions. Similarly, online trolling, cyber-stalking and harassment, which are the different ways in which bullying manifests, can be emotionally damaging.
The excessive social media use also has indirect impact on users’ mental health considering that people who overly use the social media sites are at increased risk of developing health problems. This is because social media addiction is associated with sedentary lifestyle which is a health risk factor. Health conditions and complications linked to sedentary lifestyle like diabetes can cause stress and depression, affecting the mental wellbeing of individuals (Mougharbel et al., 2023).
The Importance of the Health Care Issue
As a healthcare issue, the adolescent social media addiction including its impact on the mental well-being of adolescents is important first because it helps reveal how the excessive use of social media not only impairs one’s mental health functioning, but affects their cognitive development. The psychiatric issues in adolescents tied to digital addiction cognitively, emotionally and socially alter adolescents’ development. Failure to manage these issues can result to poor academic outcomes, and cause negative effect on the adolescents’ relationships. Strained social relationships may cause teenagers to use behavior-altering substances like opioids. This may further worsen the mental health of those using the social media.
The issue is also crucial in the sense that it informs the need to redirect efforts towards sensitizing the public about social media addiction. This is important because lack of public awareness regarding the addictive effects of the digital social platforms, is one of the key factors that are contributing to internet addiction especially in the context of social media use. With increased public awareness campaign, parents would be responsible in how they support their children to limit the use of social media.
This intervention will benefit adolescents by letting them understand the developmental issues that they may develop if they overly use social media. Implementation of this intervention would require allocating funds into programs meant to tackle issues related to addiction including digital addiction.
The other aspect that makes the issue important is that it may help inform policies and regulations that guide how teenagers use social media. Adoption of stringent measures that require social media companies to control adolescents’ use of social media is one of the examples of the measure that can help control how adolescents use online social platforms. Informed by the knowledge related to the dangers of social media use on adolescents’ health, policy formulators may create policies that require those who develop mobile devices and apps to come up with innovations that limit the amount of time teenagers spend on social media.
The issue could inspire research with emphasis on determining why excessive use of social media including the specific social media use behaviors contribute to poor mental health outcomes in teenagers. The findings generated from this kind of research would shape the development of policies that guide the operations of firms like Facebook. With subsequent development of research in this area, researchers will be able to find better approaches that can be used to help adolescents to effectively deal with digital addiction.
Part 2: Summary and Analysis of the Article
Article 1
The issue of social media addiction has attracted the attention of researchers some of whom sought to understand its impact on adolescents’ psychiatric health. In their study, for instance, Faqihi et al. (2024), targeted Saudi children and teenagers, and included them in a cross-sectional study that also involved the use of convenient sampling. According to the results of the study, most of the participants raised concerns over the negative effect of the social media on sleep patterns. The results equally revealed that for victims of social media addiction, being adult posed higher risk of developing mental health issues compared to adolescents.
In drawing conclusions related to the outcomes of the study, the authors addressed the aim for which they carried out the study. Analysis of the breadth of the research shows inclusion of adequate information ranging from the presentation of background of the issue to the review of literature, and analysis of the findings. With 2856 participants that participated in the study, the study outcomes are less likely to reflect what actually happens. This underscores the need to increase the population of the subjects involved in the study. Faqihi et al. (2024) interpret the results, explaining the significance of the findings especially in future research.
Article 2
For their part, Gupta and colleagues (2022) carried out a review of texts with focus on examining the positive and negative aspects of the social media use especially in the context of users’ psychiatric health. The methodology they used involved searching of publications using specified keywords. While this article presents a discussion of the mental health impact of the social media usage, it lacks clear focus in terms of how results are presented. The authors present general assessment of the literature without providing comprehensive discussion of how these sources contribute to answering the research question.
Based on the authors’ assessment of the existing literature, they seem focused on debunking the idea that social media use has negative effect on users’ mental health. Without information on the number of articles reviewed including the inferences made based on the findings from these articles, it can be a challenge for one to establish the relationship between social media use and mental health outcomes. Thus, the improvement of the study would require clear description of the number of studies reviewed including the consistency of these findings.
Article 3
In their study, Draženović et al. (2023) adopt a literature review approach in which they seek to investigate the same research question by utilizing the narrative qualitative synthesis. Using this methodology, the researchers selected 13 sources out of 1136 articles they retrieved through conducting search of literature using keywords. They also included studies into the review based on the specified criteria including those that addressed the use of social media following the outbreak of covid-19.
Majority of the studies showed that teenagers who used social media exhibited negative mental health outcomes ranging from stress to depression. The authors presented sufficient information, linking the aim of the research, and the theory to the results of the study. While most of the 13 articles that were reviewed indicated negative mental health outcomes in adolescent social media users, the outcomes based on these studies may not fully represent actual results. The conclusion as presented in the article shows validity of the interpretation of the results.
References
Bozzola, E., Spina, G., Agostiniani, R., Barni, S., Russo, R., Scarpato, E., Di Mauro, A., Di Stefano, A. V., Caruso, C., Corsello, G., & Staiano, A. (2022). The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(16), 9960. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19169960.
Draženović, M., Vukušić Rukavina, T., & Machala Poplašen, L. (2023). Impact of Social Media Use on Mental Health within Adolescent and Student Populations during COVID-19 Pandemic: Review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 20(4), 3392. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20043392.
Faqihi, F. A., Qutob, R. A., Subh, R. H. M., Aljathalin, L. A. M., Alshalan, L. Z., Yati, S. M. A., Alaryni, A., Alghamdi, A., Alsolamy, E., Bukhari, A., Alanazi, A., Hazazi, B. H. A., Abuhemid, H. A., Alassaf, R. A., & Alzahrani, S. S. M. (2024). Examining the Effects of Social Media on Mental Health Among Adolescents in Saudi Arabia. Cureus, 16(1), e53261. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.53261.
Gupta, C., Jogdand, D. S., & Kumar, M. (2022). Reviewing the Impact of Social Media on the Mental Health of Adolescents and Young Adults. Cureus, 14(10), e30143. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.30143.
Mougharbel, F., Chaput, J. P., Sampasa-Kanyinga, H., Hamilton, H. A., Colman, I., Leatherdale, S. T., & Goldfield, G. S. (2023). Heavy social media use and psychological distress among adolescents: the moderating role of sex, age, and parental support. Frontiers in public health, 11, 1190390. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1190390.
Place your order now for a similar assignment and get fast, cheap and best quality work written by our expert level assignment writers.Use Coupon Code: NEW30 to Get 30% OFF Your First Order
FAQs:
- how does society benefit from a population that is informationally literate?
- Google Scholar
- Information literacy and academic performance
- Impact of information literacy on students
- Impact of information literacy skill on students’ academic performance in Bangladesh