You will review both quantitative and qualitative research.  The topic is up to you as long as you choose a peer-reviewed, academic research  piece.  I suggest choosing a topic that is at least in the same family  as your expected dissertation topic so that you can start viewing what  is out there.  There are no hard word counts or page requirements as  long as you cover the basic guidelines.  You must submit original work,  however,  and a paper that returns as a large percentage of copy/paste  to other sources will not be accepted.  (Safe Assign will be used to  track/monitor your submission for plagiarism. Submissions with a Safe  Assign match of more than 25% will not be accepted.) 

Please use APA formatting and include the following information:

• Introduction/Background:  Provide  context for the research article.  What led the author(s) to write the  piece? What key concepts were explored? Were there weaknesses in prior  research that led the author to the current hypothesis or research  question?
• Methodology:  Describe  how the data was gathered and analyzed.  What research questions or  hypotheses were the researcher trying to explore? What statistical  analysis was used?
• Study Findings and Results:  What were the major findings from the study? Were there any limitations?
• Conclusions:  Evaluate  the article in terms of significance, research methods, readability and  the implications of the results.  Does the piece lead into further  study? Are there different methods you would have chosen based on what  you read? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the article in terms  of statistical analysis and application? (This is where a large part of  the rubric is covered.) 
• References