REPORTING PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS
Cards (8)
- KEY STEPS OF A PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION?
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Method
- Results
- Discussion
- Referencing
- ABSTRACT?
- written after study
- comes first in a report
- provides overview of entire report
- summary of aims, hypothesis, method, results, conclusions
- METHOD?
- describes steps in detail
- should contain enough information for another researcher to replicate
- PARTICIPANTS: age, gender, occupation, sampling technique
- MATERIALS: equipment
- PROCEDURE: what happened in easy replicable format
- INTRODUCTION?INCLUDES
- discussion of topic
- summary of previous research findings
- details of what research aims to investigate
- hypothesis
- reviews methodological issues with previous research
- explains how aims came about
- RESULTS?
- what happened during the investigation
- no raw data, only descriptive statistics summarising the data (measures of central tendency/ dispersion in tables/ graphical displays)
- shows inferential statistics (probability observed difference between conditions between variables produced by chance)
- DISCUSSION?
- free to examine, interpret and qualify results
- make inferences
- restates briefly what data shows
- draws theoretical conclusions
- REFERENCING?
- write down every book/ academic article used in their research
- in alphabetical order
- ORDER OF A PSYCHOLOGICAL REPORT?
- Summary of study (aims, method, results, conclusions)
- Findings from past research
- Hypothesis
- Experimental design
- Sampling technique
- Participants
- Materials to be used
- Ethical considerations
- Research method
- Procedure
- Descriptive statistics (measures of central tendency/ graphs)
- Inferential statistics (significance tests)
- Statement whether null hypothesis was rejected or not
- Summary of results
- Relationship to previous research
- Evaluation of methodology
- Implications of research
- Suggestions for future research
- List of journals/ books mentioned