Guide to Writing a Lab Report PDF

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Guide to writing a psychology lab report

School of Psychology, University of Western Australia Clare Mein, Shannon Byrne, Chiara Horlin and Romola Bucks for the undergraduate unit PSYC1101 ‘Mind and Brain’. Revised by Andrew Page and Adelln Sng (4th ed., 2012; 5th ed., 2013)

CONTENTS

APA style …………………………………………………………………………………………….

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The research report …..……………………………………………………………………….

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Title …………..……………………………………………………………………………………….

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Coversheet ................................................................................................ 5 Abstract

…………………………………………………………………………………………….

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Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………….

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Method

……………………………………………………………………………………………. 10

Results ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 11 Discussion …………………………………………………………………………………………. 15 Referencing

………………………………………………………………………………………. 18

Formatting …………………………………………………………………………………………. 22 Writing style ………………………………………………………………………………………. 27 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………………. 29

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APA STYLE (6th Edition) APA style is the format and style requirements outlined in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). It is simply a set of standardised guidelines for setting out your written work. It covers format, structure, punctuation, spelling, abbreviations and referencing. APA style is accepted worldwide as the standard for writing in the discipline of psychology. Standardizing the writing style across the discipline of psychology means consistency between papers. When everyone uses the same style conventions it makes it easy for a reader to understand what has been written and compare one set of findings with other findings. As a student of psychology, APA style guidelines also apply to you. At this introductory level, you are expected to apply at least the key elements of APA style.

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THE RESEARCH REPORT What is a research report? The aim of a research report is to explain a study that you have conducted. It tells a reader why you did the experiment, how you did it, what you found and what the results mean. Structure of a research report A research report has a set structure that must be followed. You are disseminating to others the results of an original experiment; you are contributing to psychological knowledge. Your report therefore needs to adhere to the same conventions that all other researchers use when reporting their results. Your research report will have these main sections: Title Outline the relationship between the key variables or highlight the main issue Abstract Give a very concise overview of the contents of your report Introduction Critically evaluate past research Explain why you conducted the study Describe what you expected to find Method Describe how you conducted the study Results Report what you found Discussion Suggest some conclusions that one might draw from your findings Reference list Provide a list of the sources you have cited in your report.

RULE OF THUMB Your Introduction and Discussion sections should each make up about a third of the word count. Your Method and Results sections, combined, should make up the remaining third.

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TITLE Your title should be no more than 10-15 words long. Aim to summarise the main idea so your reader can quickly comprehend what your report is about. A good title should either outline the relationship between the key variables or highlight the main issue. Some examples of good titles from UWA researchers: The Relationship between motor coordination, executive functioning and attention in school aged children. From brief gaps to very long pauses: Temporal isolation does not benefit serial recall. The effects of diazepam on cognitive processing. The influence of phoneme position overlap on the phonemic similarity effect in nonword recall. Intelligence and development: A cognitive theory Attractiveness in men does not provide cues to semen quality Effects of a red background on magnocellular functioning in average and specifically disabled readers Anxiety and the allocation of attention to threat Automatic and controlled activation of stereotypes: Individual differences associated with prejudice

COVERSHEET Your lab report must include a coversheet that contains the following information; a. Your full name b. Your student number c. The title of your lab report d. An EXACT word count e. A signed (initialled) declaration of originality A coversheet template is available on LMS for you to copy and paste into the front page of your lab report. RULE OF THUMB Avoid unnecessary words like "A Report on a Study of . . ." or "An Experiment to Examine . . ."

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ABSTRACT An abstract is a very concise overview of the contents of your report. It should be no longer than 120 words. A good abstract should: a. Define the research problem b. Outline your method c. Describe key findings d. Discuss key implications You may notice that these key points correspond to information from/a summary of each section of the report. Some examples of good abstracts:

Abstract The emphasis on greater intra and inter-disciplinary collaboration in Australian universities has stimulated research in to strategies of facilitation success in cooperative endeavours in the research sector. Sixty-six academics, making up 33 collaborative dyads, were jointly exposed to humorous or bland audio-visual material over a period of eight weeks. Those jointly exposed to the humorous material reported significantly higher ratings of enjoyment and productivity in the collaboration, but no significant difference in perceived satisfaction. Implications for further research are discussed, particularly the need for the development and implementation of an objective, standardized measure of productivity.

Abstract This study examined the effects of short-term food deprivation on two cognitive abilities: concentration and perseverance. Undergraduate students (N = 51) were tested on a concentration task and a perseverance task after one of three levels of food deprivation: none, 12 hours, or 24 hours. It was predicted that food deprivation would impair both concentration scores and perseverance time. Food deprivation had no significant effect on concentration scores. Participants in the 12-hour deprivation group spent significantly less time on the perseverance task than those in both the control and 24-hour deprivation groups, suggesting that short-term deprivation may affect some aspects of cognition and not others.

TIP You may find it easier to come back and write the Abstract after you have written the report, when your experiment and its results and implications are clear in your mind.

YOUR ABSTRACT WILL BE GIVEN A MARK OUT OF 5 Have you concisely summarised your study’s rationale, method, findings and implications? Have you stuck to the 120 word limit?

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INTRODUCTION Think of your introduction as a funnel into your experiment. You start relatively broad and general, by introducing your topic and mentioning relevant background information. Then narrow down to explain theories and empirical findings especially relevant to your experiment. Then narrow down further to point out gaps in the exisiting research literature and establish the rationale for conducting your particular experiment. Then finish by very specifically stating your aims and hypotheses.

Start general

Finish specific

Provide background information Introduce the topic your study addresses and the theoretical framework that underlies your study. Define any key terms you will be using. Review relevant literature Outline previous studies done in the area, their findings and conclusions. Only go into detail about those studies that are central to understanding why you did your experiment. Avoid providing a “shopping list” of studies (e.g. Study A did this. Study B did that. Then Study C did this). Instead, try and identify common themes/findings from the studies (e.g. Studies A and B found this... However Study C found the opposite).

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Establish your rationale Based on your review of the literature, you need to state how your study will add to the current body of knowledge. State what is already known from previous research. Then, state the questions that remain unanswered and how you research will contribute beyond what is already known. State your aims Tell your reader exactly what you are investigating. What are you interested in finding out? For example: This study aimed to determine whether same-sex friends are more similar than same-sex strangers in their attitudes.

State your hypotheses A hypothesis is an (informed) guess about how the world is. Hypotheses are often expressed in a form such as “It was hypothesised that ...”. Before you conducted the experiment, what did you think the answer to your research question was? It was hypothesised that same-sex friends would have more similar attitudes to the environment, abortion, multiculturalism, and law and order than would same-sex strangers.

REMEMBER Your lab report title is the heading for your Introduction section. There is no heading “Introduction”

REMEMBER Everything about the participants and what you did in the experimental session belongs in your Method section, not in the Introduction.

YOUR INTRODUCTION WILL BE GIVEN A MARK OUT OF 20 Have you clearly introduced the motivation for the experiment? Does your introduction culminate in a statement of the hypotheses?

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WHAT’S IN AN AIM? When writing your introduction, it’s easy to get confused between your aim, your hypothesis and your experimental predictions. Here’s a rough guide to distinguishing these concepts.

Aim Your aim is what you are interested in finding out. You’ll often use the word ‘whether’ when writing your aim. This study aimed to determine whether anxiety is associated with an attentional bias to threat.

Hypothesis Your hypothesis is your informed guess about how the world is. It was hypothesised that social trait anxiety is characterised by enhanced attentional engagement with threat.

Prediction Your prediction (or expectation) is what you expect to happen in your experiment if your hypothesis was “true”/correct. It was expected that people with high trait anxiety would react faster to images of angry faces than would those with low trait anxiety.

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METHOD The purpose of the method is to explain how you conducted your study. The Method usually contains three sections: Participants, Materials, and Procedure. Participants Who participated in your study? How many people completed the experiment? Include information that demonstrates the degree to which your sample is generalizable to the wider population; such as age, gender ratios, level of education, nationality. Some of this information will not be relevant to the variables that you are investigating in your study, and do not have to be reported. Do not include guesses about the demographic characteristics of your sample if these characteristics were not measured. Mention how your participants came to be involved in the study (e.g., were they volunteers recruited from nursing homes via an advertisement, undergraduate students who took part as a course requirement, inpatients from a particular hospital who were referred by their doctor?) Were there any selection criteria? (e.g., were participants screened for anxiety level? Did they have to meet criteria for a particular disorder? Did they have to be a particular gender, age or ethnicity?) Materials What materials did you use in the study? Describe any standardised tasks or questionnaires your participants completed. Include information about any unusual items or specialist equipment you used (e.g., audio recording equipment). There’s no need to provide details about common items such as pens, pencils, chairs. For example, it may be important to mention that participants completed a task at a computer, but only include details about the computer’s brand, speed, screen resolution and size if it is relevant. Procedure What did the participants do? In what order? Include information such as how participants were divided into groups, the instructions they were given, the tasks they performed.

REMEMBER Your Method section is concerned only with what the participants did during the experimental session. Any mention of your results should be saved for the Results section.

RULE OF THUMB There should be sufficient detail in your Method section that the reader could replicate your experiment. BUT do not include every detail – only what is relevant.

YOUR METHOD SECTION WILL BE GIVEN A MARK OUT OF 20 Is your method divided into appropriate sections? Could someone replicate this experiment, based on what you have written here?

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RESULTS The purpose of the Results section is to present, but not yet discuss, the outcome of your experiment. What did you find? Present descriptive statistics Present the means, standard deviations and standard error for the major variables. To do this, either write the results in the text OR use a table OR a figure, but remember to report the actual data only once. You must choose which format presents the data to the reader in the most accessible way. Think about which you would find easier to interpret. Pictures are often quicker to process, so it may be best to choose a figure over a table whenever possible. Tables and figures are usually better than giving lots of numbers in the text. However, all figures and tables must be introduced and discussed in the text. Point out the important patterns in the data, but do not repeat the specific numbers in your text (as they are already in your table or figure). For example: Figure 1 shows that participants with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder scored more highly on the BDI than participants with Generalised Anxiety Disorder.

REMEMBER In your Results section, you are concerned only with numbers and patterns in your data. Do not say here what you think the data mean about people and the world. This goes in your Discussion.

REMEMBER You don’t need to present every participant’s score. When you present descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations etc.) you are summarising the raw data for your reader.

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Report inferential statistics There are different types of inferential statistics that you may have to report when presenting your findings in the results section. The inferential statistic(s) that we choose depends on the research question. Reporting group differences. You may wish to use a figure or a table here to illustrate group differences. In addition, you should describe in the text: a. Which group mean (or average) is bigger? By how many units? b. State whether it is likely to be a real difference between the two groups’ scores (consider the degree of overlap between the separate distributions of scores).

Reporting associations between variables You may wish to use a figure or a table here to present correlations. In addition, you should describe in the text: a. What you are correlating with and why. b. Whether there is an association between these two variables. In which direction? c. How strong is the association? State how much of the variance in scores on your second variable is explained by scores on your first variable.

TIP. For more information about correlations, see these pages in the Passer textbook: pp. 45-49, and pp. 723-725.

TIP. If you are confused about standard deviation, standard error or other statistics, don’t worry, you will learn how to analyse your data in your lab.

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Formatting tables Tables are a clear way to present lots of data. Your table should help to illustrate your narrative – it shouldn’t repeat what is said in the text. Avoid using a table if your data could be presented more succinctly in a couple of sentences. For tables, APA format stipulates you: - Use Times New Roman font, size 12pt - Double space your whole table, including the title. - Put a label and number above your table (e.g., Table 1 ) - Give your table a title. This should be a concise description of the data it presents. Use italics. - Put an unbroken horizontal cell border under the title, under the row headers, and under the last row of the table. - If you present means, include standard deviation

Table 1 Means (SD) for the distracted and control groups on two working memory tasks. Distracted group

Control group

Task A

37.3 (4.9)

60.7 (5.2)

Task B

40.5 (6.7)

78.0 (9.2)

RULE OF THUMB Place your table or figure close to (preferably immediately after) the text that refers to it.

TIP Use the Insert Table command in Windows (or download this table from LMS to use as a template).

TIP Check your table: Is the table necessary? Have you introduced and explained the table in the text? Are all the tables in your report presented consistently? Are all abbreviations explained? Are the table and title of the table together on the same page?

YOUR RESULTS SECTION WILL BE GIVEN A MARK OUT OF 20 Have you reported your descriptive and inferential statistics clearly? If you presented your results in a table OR figure, did you explain them in text without repeating the results? Did you make sure NOT to interpret or discuss the findings in this section?

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Formatting figures

For figures, APA format stipulates you: - Use Times New Roman 12pt for the title. - Use Helvetica or Arial font within the figure ( e.g. for the legends and axis titles). - Put a label and number below your figure. Use italics. - Give your figure a title. This should be a concise description of the data it presents. - Join the x and y axes to form a box around the data - Label each axis. Include units in parentheses - Use the horizontal (x) axis for the independent variable, and the vertical (y) axis for the dependent variable. - Use only black and white. Use various shading patterns (in greyscale) to differentiate groups. - Mark standard error bars above and below the mean. - Include a legend if necessary.

35.0

Mean working memory score

30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0 Control

Distracted Condition

Figure 1. Mean working memory scores for participants in distracted and control conditions. Error bars represent standard error of the mean.

TIP Check your figure: Have you mentioned the figure in the text? Are all figures in your report presented consistently? Are all abbreviations explained? Are the figure and the title of the figure together on the same page?

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DISCUSSION The purpose of the discussion is to review your findings and consider their implications. Think about the structure of your Discussion as the reverse of your ‘funnel’ Introduction: you start more specifically and gradually get broader in scope.

Start specific

Finish general

Summarise your findings What did you find? Start by restating your aims and then summarise the important results and comment on whether they supported the hypotheses. Do not repeat actual values; these are already in your Results section. Instead, talk about the findings (e.g., Group A scored more highly than Group B on measure X.) This first paragraph should be understood by a reader who is unfamiliar with your study. Restating your aim(s) and hypotheses at the beginning of the Discussion is also helpful because some readers may have forgotten what they were!

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Discuss the meaning of the findings For each separate hypothesis dis...