Introduction
The article “Collegiate Recovery Programs: The Peabody Journal of Education in the Online Domain” by Kitty et al. seeks to describe the emerging adult population of recuperating college students the historical background of the programs. At this development stage, young and adolescent people are at the helm of making career decisions that require them to attend college and universities. The use of Collegiate recovery programs is successful in facilitating graduate students’ recovery from substance abuse disorders. The research problem being addressed is whether collegiate recovery programs are still successful in treating adults and adolescents with substance abuse disorders.
Analysis of the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Article
Strengths
On assessing the journal article title, it clearly reflects the article’s content and is well-defined. For instance, the article’s title is about collegiate recovery programs, which aligns with the entire content represented in the article (Kitty et al., 2014). The article seems relevant to the title, with every section and discussion presented with background information before delving into the main points. It is apparent in the content that the use of collegiate recovery programs has a long history. Great article presents author credentials as seen at the beginning of the article under evaluation. Another strength of this journal article arises in providing the historical background of the research topic. For instance, the article clearly states that from the 1980s, various colleges and universities implemented collegiate recovery programs, providing students with a conducive environment to recuperate from substance abuse disorders. This background is supported by an article by Laudet et al. (2015) that start by laying historical and trend in the use of collegiate recovery programs to treat adult and adolescent substance abuse disorders.
Besides, this article by Kitty et al. (2014) is strong as it clearly provides and discusses the goals and objectives of the research topic. Similarly, Kitty et al. (2014) assert that every collegiate recovery program displays the traits of the university and the surrounding communities. This aspect lays a concise background on the goals and objectives of the research topic presented in the article. To support the goals and objectives of the research question, the author uses examples of the role of surrounding communities and colleges in supporting students and empowering them in their recovery programs. In order to provide a comprehensive search on the use of collegiate recovery programs to support adult and adolescent recovery from substance abuse, the author offers a series of statistics from previous studies on the topic that makes it easier for any reader to understand and contemplate on the topic and content of discussion.
Regarding the choice of research methodologies, Kitty et al. (2014) integrate mixed research methodologies, combining qualitative and quantitive methods. The author indicates 75 as the number of collegiate recovery programs established and 500 as the number of student beneficiaries in the program (Kitty et al., 2014). The author also effectively incorporate a qualitative research methodology in discussing comprehensive interview conducted on adult populations and their impact on using Collegiate recovery programs. Similar strength is observed in the author’s ability to discuss identified themes on the research topic. Data collection techniques using in-depth interviews were appropriate for the research topic presented and supported by an effective data analysis procedure. The data processing and analysis section further provides the citation for the relevant information used by other authors.
Weaknesses
Although the article reflects various strengths in terms of the titles, selection of data collection methods, and processing and analysis of data, it has various weaknesses. First, the article lacks an abstract and an introduction section explaining the main points presented in the article discussion. The article by Kitty et al. (2014) lacks a summary of key points and research methodologies. The audience is ambushed with methodologies inside the content, making it ambiguous. The article journal describes the emerging adult population of recovery college students but seems to argue about the use of substances (Kitty et al., 2014). The evidence presented is perspective and not strong enough to support the central research argument. Great research article journals incorporate a literature review section on past studies about the research topic. The article by Kitty et al. (2014) omits a literature review section that could have detected the research gaps in existing studies.
Additionally, the article’s research design is inappropriate in addressing the research question, and fewer sources have been used to draw the conclusions. Although the article describes the use of collegiate recovery programs in adults and young people with substance use disorders, it supports the belief that the majority of young people tend to use substances at varying levels, this weakens the main argument. In support, the authors provide statistical analysis on previous studies, though not in the literature review. In describing the social settings of collegiate recovery programs, the authors start by giving a historical background of treating adults and adolescents using collegiate recovery programs approach. The article presents a mix-up of the content, creating disorientation of the information discussed. Compared with other journal articles, this article is weak in content presentation and choice of research design.
A Comparison to Related Article
The article on Collegiate Recovery Programs by Kitty et al. (2014) lacked an abstract and introduction section summarizing the main points of the article.This contrasts with (Laudet et al., 2015), who presented an abstract summarizing what their research article discussed. Similarly, the article on collegiate recovery programs through an integrated behavioral model by Ashford et al. (2018) integrates the abstract and definition of keywords to provide insights into the content discussed in the paper.
Regarding the presentation of results, Ashford et al. (2018), Laudet et al. (2015), Cindro et al. (2022), and Brown et al. (2018) presented results from their research in a concise and organized manner. The organization of results in the article by Kitty et al. (2014) is missing, making it ambiguous for the audience to follow the outcomes. While the article provided answers to the hypothesis on whether using collegiate recovery programs successfully treats substance abuse disorders in adults and adolescent students.
In comparing Kitty et al (2014) with articles by Cindro et al. (2022), in their article, they used tables and graphs in data presentation. On the other hand, Kitty et al. (2014) do not integrate tables and figures to discuss the result on their research question. Laudet et al. (2015) in their align their result discussion with the formulated research hypothesis. Kitty et al. (2015) align with Cindro et al., (2022), provided a list of references used at the end of the article journal, and this aligns with the articles included for comparison.
Conclusion
The article by Kitty et al. (2014) strongly presents the title aligning with the research topic, making it a good article journal. The article is relevant to the title, with background information presented in every section. The article further provides author credentials and their area of experience. The goals and objectives of the research are provided in the article, giving credentials for a good article journal. In addition, Kitty et al. (2014) cite various researches to support the evident presented. Choice of mixed research methods involving qualitative and quantitive research methods that help collect, analyze, and present. However, the weaknesses in the article arise from the lack of an abstract and introduction summarizing the main points. In addition, the article used an inappropriate research design to conduct the research. The article lacks concise organization of the content, creating a mix-up. From the discussion above, the article by Kitty et al. (2014) is not straightforward.
References
Ashford, R. D., Brown, A. M., & Curtis, B. (2018). Collegiate recovery programs: The integrated behavioral health model. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 36(2), 274–285. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert-Ashford-2/publication/322079166_Collegiate_Recovery_Programs_The_Integrated_Behavioral_Health_Model/links/5a43b3070f7e9ba868a77dce/Collegiate-Recovery-Programs-The-Integrated-Behavioral-Health-Model.pdf?_sg%5B0%5D=started_experiment_milestone&origin=journalDetail
Brown, A., Ashford, R., Heller, A. T., Whitney, J., & Kimball, T. (2018). Collegiate recovery students and programs: A literature review from 1988-2017. Journal of Recovery Science, 1(1), 1–11. https://www.recoverysciencejournal.org/index.php/JORS/article/view/8
Cindro, P. V., Bukic, J., Pranić, S., Leskur, D., Rušić, D., Perišin, A. Š., … & Modun, D. (2022). Did an introduction of CONSORT for abstract guidelines improve the reporting quality of randomized controlled trials’ abstracts on Helicobacter pylori infection? Observational study. BMJ open, 12(3), e054978. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?output=instlink&q=info:rrMoPXDZXF8J:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2019&scillfp=4060604467524958802&oi=lle
Harris, K. S., Kimball, T. G., Casiraghi, A. M., & Maison, S. J. (2014). Collegiate recovery programs. Peabody journal of education, 89(2), 229-243. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0161956X.2014.897095
Laudet, A. B., Harris, K., Kimball, T., Winters, K. C., & Moberg, D. P. (2015). Characteristics of students participating in collegiate recovery programs: A national survey. Journal of substance abuse treatment, 51, 38-46. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4346424/
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