reporting psychological investigations

Question 1

what formats are most commonly used

Answer 1

-American psychological association (APA) format
-other variations such as harvard can also be used

Question 2

what are the subsections of the report

Answer 2

-Abstract
-Introduction
-Method: design, sample, procedure, ethics
-results
-discussion
-ethics

Question 3

what is the abstract and what does it include

Answer 3

-short summary of key points in research
-aim, hypotheses, participants, methods, results, data analysis and conclusions

Question 4

what is the introduction and what does it include

Answer 4

-justifying the need for the research
-literature review (overview of research which already exists within the proposed field of study)
-after prior steps, state aim and hypotheses

Question 5

what is the method: design and what does it include

Answer 5

-where the technicalities of the research are explained, without going into full procedure
-experimental design, independent/ dependant variable
-how participants were allocated to the conditions

Question 6

what is the method: sample and what does it include

Answer 6

-researcher explains the nature of the participants who made up their sample (age, gender, education)
-and their sampling method e.g. volunteer/how participants were recruited

Question 7

what is the method: apparatus/ materials and what does it include

Answer 7

-details of equipment and materials used in the study, not all research has subheading e.g. if materials used are trivial

Question 8

what is the method: procedure and what does it include

Answer 8

-the “recipe” for the reader
-standardised instructions, informed consent and debriefing forms

Question 9

what is the method: ethics and what does it include

Answer 9

-ethical issues and how they were addressed

Question 10

what is the results and what does it include

Answer 10

-report about presenting the findings
-numerical and graphs/ tables
-presented in chronological order
-descriptive statistics, measures of central tendency and dispersion
-the p value

Question 11

what is the discussion and what does it include

Answer 11

-findings are interpreted and discuss what they mean, in verbal form
1. how the findings compare with the initial research questions and hypotheses
2. how the research compares with other relevant research that has been published within the field
3. the implications for future research

Question 12

what is the references and what does it include

Answer 12

-giving credit to original authors of work that has been referred to or cited within the research report