Guidelines for Research Report #2

This is a summary of some of the guidelines discussed in class on 4/7/05 and 4/14/05. It is not necessarily a complete list of all of the expectations for this report, but it is an attempt to summarize some of the points I made in class. (NOTE: the red items were added during class and I did not go over them yet.)

GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR APA REPORTS

begin by reading the chapter in the text on writing an APA paper – chapter 15.

print out and review the general handout on guidelines for writing papers. (This is near the top under Handouts on my website, and there also is a link to it on the page on Research Assignments and Notes that you can get to from the Psych 220 home page.)

Print out or obtain the general handout on writing an APA report: APA report grading sheet. (You also can get to this on the page on Research Assignments and Notes that you can get to from the Psych 220 home page.)

SPECIFIC GUIDELINES FOR RESEARCH REPORT #2

Central requirement for this report:
Use the questionnaire study we did as a class.
You may use the analyses we did together as a class (Homework #10)
You do not need to use everything we did, but you MUST use at least one correlation and at least one t test.
If you prefer, you may also do additional analyses on this data – anything you want.

Abstract
Balancing act: relatively brief, but relatively comprehensive. Should include something about each section of your report.

Introduction:
Issue or general question or area of interest.
Specific question or questions you asked in your study
Brief introduction to your approach.

Required for report #2: at least two references

These references should be cited in the introduction and, if appropriate also the discussion.

See text and class notes for discussion of the "hourglass model" for writing a research report.

Method:
Particpants
This study:
Convenience sample.

Materials
See earlier notes.

Questionnaire.
Give a description that is one paragraph, with enough info so a reader gets a good idea what the questionnaire was like.
[complete questionnaire in appendix]

Procedure
Voluntary participation
confidentiality. How confidentiality was assured in this study.

Results

Required: text description, at least one table, at least one figure.
- table and figure must be described/summarized in the text.

Discussion

Limitations of the study

Questionnaire –
- look up limitations of questionnaires in your class notes
- self report – - general comment – also apply to specific findings of your study

External validity

Not a true expt. Correlational study. Limitations of correlational studies.

NOTE: refer to your text and notes to recall that it can be a correlational study even when the statistic you calculate is a t test. Why is it a correlational study???

Acknowledgements – give credit for people who helped in any way.
Include credit for references (people who gave ideas or specific references).

Appendix:
Copy of questionnaoire
Raw data (?) (Paul’s sheet you were sent).
More detailed notes on one or more of your references or complete copies of references if you want.