Are extroversion and openness related to white-knuckle horror film watching? Describe participants and setting: who, when, where, how many, what groups? • Describe the method: what design, what experimental treatment, what questionnaires, surveys or tests used. • Describe the major findings, which may include a mention of the statistics used and the significance levels, or simply one sentence summing up the outcome. • The final sentence(s) outline the studies ‘contribution to knowledge’ within the literature. What does it all mean? Mention implications of your findings if appropriate. Advice The abstract comes at the beginning of your report but is written at the end (as it summarises information from all the other sections of the report). Introduction The purpose of the introduction is to explain where your hypothesis comes from (i.e. it should provide a rationale for your research study). Ideally, the introduction should have a funnel structure: Start broad and then become more specific. The aims should not appear out of thin air, the preceding review of psychological literature should lead logically into the aims and hypotheis. Start with general theory, briefly introducing the topic. Define the important key terms. • Explain the theoretical framework. • Summarise and synthesize previous studies – What was the purpose? Who were the participants? What did they do? What did they find? What do these results mean? How do the results relate to the theoretical framework? Rationale: How does the current study address a gap in the literature? Perhaps it overcomes a limiation of previous research. • Aims and hypothesis. Write a paragraph explaining what you plan to investigate annd make a clear and concise prediction regarding the results you expect to find. Advice There should be a logical progression of ideas which aids the flow of the report. This means the studies outlined should lead logically into your aims and hypotheses. Do be concise and selective, avoid the temptation to include anything in case it is relevant (i.e. don’t write a shopping list of studies). Method USE THE FOLLOWING SUBHEADINGS: Participants How many participants were recruited? Say how you obtained your sample (e.g. opportunity sample). Give relevant demographic details, e.g. gender, ethnicity, age range, mean age, and standard deviation. Design State the experimental design. What were the independent and dependent variables? Make sure the independent variable is labeled and name the different conditions/levels. For example, if gender is the independent variable label, then male and female are the levels/conditions/groups. How were the IV and DV operationalised? Identify any controls used, e.g. counterbalancing, control of extraneous variables. Materials List all the materials and measures (e.g., what was the title of the questionnaire? Was it adapted from a study?). You do not need to include wholesale replication of materials – instead include a ‘sensible’ (illustrate) level of detail. For example, give examples of questionnaire items. Include the reliability (e.g. alpha values) for the measure(s). Procedure Describe the precise procedure you followed when carrying out your research i.e. exactly what you did. Describe in sufficient detail to allow for replication of findings. Be concise in your description and omit extraneous / trivial details. E.g. you don’t need to include details regarding instructions, debrief, record sheets etc. Advice • Assume the reader has no knowledge of what you did and ensure that he/she would be able to replicate (i.e. copy) your study exactly by what you write in this section. • Write in the past tense. Don’t justify or explain in the Method (e.g. why you choose a particular sampling method), just report what you did. • Only give enough detail for someone to replicate experiment – be concise in your writing. 5. Results: The results section of a paper usually present the descriptive statistics followed by inferential statistics. Report the means, standard deviations and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for each IV level. If you have four to 20 numbers to present, a well-presented table is best, APA style. Name the statistical test being used. Report appropriate statistics (e.g., t-scores, p values). Report the magnitude (e.g., are the results significant or not?) as well as the direction of the results (e.g., which group performed better?).
