Peer review & Writing a Psychological Report

• Peer review

  the assessment of scientific work by others who are specialists in the same field, to ensure that any research intended for publication is of high quality
• involves all aspects of written investigation being scrutinised by a small group who should conduct an objective review and be unknown to the author.
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  Main aims of peer review:

  1. Allocate research funding: may be coordinated by the government funding organisation to decide whether or not to award funding for a research project
  2. To validate the quality and relevance of research: e.g the methodology, hypothesis, statistical tests etc.
  3. To suggest amendments or improvements.
• Publication bias

  Editors of journals have a tendency to publish significant findings to increase publication and also prefer positive results so research that doesn’t meet this criteria may be disregarded or ignored; creating a false impression on the current state of psychology
• Anonymity

  a minority of reviewers may use their anonymity as a way of criticising rival researchers. This is made more likely by the fact that many researchers are in direct competition for limited research funding
• Burying groundbreaking research:

  may suppress opposition to mainstream theories or those which contradict reviewers own views in order to maintain the status quo. Peer review may have the effect of slowing down the rate of change
• Abstract

  first section in a journal article is a short summary / abstract that includes all the major elements: the aims and hypotheses, method, results and conclusions. Psychologists often read abstracts in order to identify those studies that are worthy of further examination.
• Introduction

  A literature review of the general area of research detailing relevant theories, concepts and studies that are related to the current study. It should follow a logical progression; gradually becoming more specific.
• Method

  • the design is clearly stated, eg. independent groups, naturalistic observation, etc.
  • the sampling method and target population.
  • Apparatus/materials - detail of any assessment instruments used and other relevant materials.
  • Procedure - a recipe-style list of everything that happened in the investigation from beginning to end. This includes a record of informing participants: briefing. standardised instructions and debriefing
  • Ethics - an explanation of how these were addressed within the study.
• Results

  Should summarise the key findings from the investigation. This is likely to feature descriptive statistics such as tables, graphs and charts, measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion.
• Discussions

  • summarise the results/ findings in verbal, rather than statistical, form.
  • should discuss the limitations of the present investigation and this may include some suggestions of how these limitations might be addressed in a future study.
  • Wider implications of the research are considered e.g real-world applications
• Referencing

  Includes full details of any source material cited in the report.

  Journal references follow the format: author(s) surname first, date, article title, journal name (in italics), page numbers.