Reporting Psychological investigations

Reporting Psychological investigations

What is a psychological report?

• Lays out everything about a study

• Efficient info

Reporting Psychological investigations

what are the sections in a psychological report?

1. Abstract

2. Introduction

3. Method

4. Results

5. Discussion

6. References

Reporting Psychological investigations

What is an abstract, and what’s its purpose?

What is it?

• At the start of the report

• A summary of the aims, methods, results, and conclusions

• One or two paragraphs

What’s its purpose?

• speed up research process

• Researchers planning their studies conduct a literature review - abstract tells them if it’s worth reading

Reporting Psychological investigations
What is an introduction?

• the 2nd part of a report

• contextualises - what research already exists, justifies why the current research is being conducted

• Explains the aim and give the hypothesis

Reporting Psychological investigations

What is the method, and what’s its purpose?

What is it?

• A guide of how the research was conducted

• Includes details of the:

  • Design

  • Participants

  • Apparatus/materials

  • Procedure

  • Ethical considerations

What’s its purpose?

• Gives other researchers the ability to replicate and see if they get the same results

Reporting Psychological investigations

What does the design part of the method mean?

Description of any design decisions for example:

• Choice of research method eg: filed experiment

• Choice of experimental design eg: independent groups

• Choice of observation techniques (where relevant)

• Identification of variables: IV, DV, confounding variables, co-variables

• Ethical considerations

Reporting Psychological investigations

What does the participant part of the method mean?

Who was involved? Full details of:

• Researchers: details of who conducted the research

• The target population, describe in terms of age, sex, education or any other relevant variables

• The sampling method

• The actual sample

• Treatment groups i.e. how were participants assigned to conditions

Reporting Psychological investigations

What does the apparatus/materials part of the method mean?

• A description of all apparatus/ materials used

• The exact details should be placed in the appendices

Reporting Psychological investigations

What is the results sections?

What is it?

• Researcher includes details about what they found in their investigation

What does it include?

• Descriptive statistics (eg: summary tables, graphs, measures of central tendency and dispersion)

• Inferential statistics (eg: results of statistical tests, including calculated values and significance levels)

• If qualitative research has been conducted, the results section would involve description of the categories and themes, along with examples

Reporting Psychological investigations

What is the discussion section?

• Where the researcher interprets the results of the study

• Makes criticism of the methodology used

• Considers the implications of the results for future research

• Suggests real-world applications

Reporting Psychological investigations

What are references?

• The references should be a list of all the researchers mentioned in alphabetical order

• The recommended format to use is the Harvard style

Reporting Psychological investigations

How to write a reference in the Harvard style?

1. start with the surname and initials

2. publication date in brackets

3. name of book/article

4. location of publication

5. name of publisher

Reporting Psychological investigations

What are the extra referencing steps for journal articles?

AT END:

1. journal name

2. volume

3. (issue)

4. page numbers

Reporting Psychological investigations

Write this reference:

In 1980, a book about social cognition was published in New York. The book was written by Robert L. Selman from Harvard University. The title was ‘The growth of interpersonal understanding: developmental and clinical analyses’. The book was published by Academic Press.

Selman, R. L. (1980). The growth of interpersonal understanding: developmental and clinical analyses. New York. Academic Press.

Reporting Psychological investigations

What’s the purpose of a title?

Tells the reader what the report is about