reporting psychological investigations

what are the 7 sections included in a psychological report?

1. abstract

2. introduction

3. method

4. results

5. discussion

6. references

7. appendices (not on spec)

what is the abstract of a psychological report?

• short summary (150-200 words)

• all major elements (aims, hypothesis, variables, methods, procedures, results, conclusions)

what does an introduction include (in a psychological report)

• literature review

• start broad - general area related to study

• becomes increasingly specific (funnel down to aims and hypotheses of current study)

what goes in the method? (in a psychological report)

• a description of how the current study was conducted

• someone should be able to read your method section and go replicate it

1. design

2. sampling

3. materials

4. procedure

5. ethical considerations

what should u include in the design part in the method section (in a psychological report)

• research method: observations, case study, content analysis etc.

• design decisions and justification

what should u include in the sampling part in the method section (in a psychological report)

• number of Ps

• relevant info e.g. age, demographic (socio-economic status etc.), biographic (story of life if relevant

• sampling method

• target population

what should u include in the materials part in the method section (in a psychological report)

• description of any apparatus/resources used e.g. questionnaire

• detail of how you constructed it e.g. randomised order etc.

• copies are placed in appendix and referenced in text

what should u include in the procedure part in the method section (in a psychological report)

• recipe style (step by step)

• refer to standardised instructions - brief, debrief

• record exactly what was said to P’s and what they had to do

• copies in appendices

what should u include in the ethical considerations part in the method section (in a psychological report)

• what considerations were there?

• how did you address these?

what goes in the results section (in a psychological report)

• summarises main findings

• raw data → appendix

• two sections: descriptive stats and inferential stats

what goes in the descriptive stats part of the results section (in a psychological report)

• describe the data

• tables, graphs - measures of central tendency, measures of dispersion

• ^ and written explanation of these

what goes in the inferential stats part of the results section (in a psychological report)

• stats tests → allows us to infer from data collected whether results show a statistically significant difference/association

• choice of test

• calculated value

• critical value

• level of significance and outcome of stats test

what goes in the discussion section of a psychological report

• discussion of what the results really mean

• how confident regarding validity, reliability etc.

4 separate sections:

• explanation of findings

• relationship to background research

• limitations and modifications

• implications of findings and suggestions for future research

what should u put in the ‘explanations and findings’ part of the discussion section (in a psychological report)

• interpretation of data

• conclusions → what does yours suggest in relation to aims and hypotheses

what should u put in ‘relationship to background research’ part of the discussion section (in a psychological report)

• discuss findings in relation to background research presented in intro

• don’t bring in new research here

what should u put in ‘limitations and modifications’ part of the discussion section (in a psychological report)

• anything that went wrong/didn’t work as expected and how to improve if replicated

• e.g. sampling and methodology

what should you put in ‘implications of findings and suggestions for future research’ in discussion section (in a psychological report)

• real world application

• what is next avenue of research?

what goes in the reference section of a psychological report?

• must give full details of any source cited in report

• different sources reference in different styles

how do u reference a book?

• surname and initials of author

• date of publication

• title of book (capital letter of each word in title)

• place of publication

• name of publisher

how do you reference a journal?

• surname and initials of ALL authors (no et. al)

• date of publication

• title of journal article (capital letter at start of title)

• name of journal

• volume number

• page numbers

how to write a web reference?

• title of web page

• date published

• title

• web address

• date last read

what order should references go in?

alphabetic