Reporting investigations Flashcards
What are the 6 features of psychological reports in order?
1- Abstract
2- Introduction
3- Method
4- Results
5- Discussion
6- Referencing
What is the abstract?
Short summary, including:
- Aims and hypothesis
- Method/procedure
- Results and conclusions
What is the introduction?
- Details relevant theories, concepts and studies that relate to the current study
- Logical progression: begin broadly, gradually becomes more specific, until aims and hypothesis are presented
What is the method?
- Design (+ reasons/justification)
- Sample (size, biographical info, sampling method, traget population)
- Apparatus/materials
- Procedure (recipe-style list from beginning to end- including: briefing, standardised instructions, debriefing)
- Ethics (how they have been addressed)
What are the results?
- Summary of key findings
- Feature descriptive stats (table, graph, charts, measures of central tendency and dispersion)
- Inferential stats include reference to stats test, calculated/critical values, significance levels)
What is the discussion?
- Summarise results/findings in verbal form
- Findings discussed in context of the evidence presented in the intro
- Discussion of limitations and suggestions on how to overcome these
- Wider implications of research considered
What is referencing?
- Includes full details of source material cited in report
- Types: journal, book, websites
How to reference a journal?
Author(s), date, article title, journal name (in italics), volume (issue), page numbers
E.g:
Gupta, S. Effects of time of day and personality on intelligence scores. Personality and individual differences, 12 (11), 1227-1231
How to reference a book?
Author(s), date, book title (in italics), place of publication, publisher
E.g:
Skinner, B.F. (1953) Science and human behaviour. New York: MacMillan
How to reference websites?
Source, date, title, weblink, date accessed
E.g:
NHS (2018) Phobias https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/phobias/ [Accessed May 2020]
