Reporting on psychological investigations

• Abstract:

  • Short summary of key points of research in roughly 150-200 words
  • Includes aim and hypotheses, participants, methods, results, data analysis, conclusions and implications of findings
• Introduction:

  • Justifies the need for conducting research
  • Literature review to identify gaps in existing research or new questions
  • Literature review starts broad and narrows down to focus on the study
  • Aim and hypothesis stated at the end of the introduction
• Method:

  • Design: explains technicalities of the study, experimental design, independent/dependent variables
  • Sample: nature of participants, sampling method, important characteristics
  • Apparatus/Materials: details of equipment and materials used
  • Procedure: step-by-step guide for replication
  • Ethics: addresses ethical issues in the study
• Results:

  • Presents findings in numerical form
  • Descriptive statistics: composition of sample and conditions, measures of central tendency and dispersion
  • Inferential statistics: justifies choice of statistical tests, reports p-value to three decimal places
  • Links results back to hypotheses
• Discussion:

  • Interprets findings in verbal form
  • Compares findings with research questions and hypotheses
  • Compares research with other relevant studies
  • Discusses implications for future research
  • Explores discussion points within the context of existing research
  • Considers limitations of the research
  • Provides critical analysis of the impact of the research
• References:

  • Gives credit to original authors of work referred to or cited in the report
  • References should be in alphabetical order according to the last name of the author
  • Written in APA format
• what is the purpose of the introduction


  to provide the rationale for the study