Basic Research Methods in Psychology

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PSY 301
Communicating Psychological Research
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PSY 301
Steps in a research project
1) Formulate a testable hypothesis
2) Design the study - choose the method
participants
3) Collect the data
4) Analyze the data, make conclusions
5) Publish/Report the findings
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PSY 301
Why do you need to know about communicating
research?
To be able to write your own papers
To be able to read others papers
- to know where to find the information in the
paper
This is why there are standardized writing
formats (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc).
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PSY 301
APA Style
THE source is the Publication Manual (APA)
Outlines the details to instruct authors how to
prepare a manuscript for submission to an APA
journal for consideration for publication.
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Writing

• Write to a knowledgeable person not in not in
  this class
• Simply, clearly, and briefly
• Outline
• Edit
• Read aloud

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Main Parts of a Paper

• Title Page
• (page break)
• Abstract
• (page break)
• Introduction
• Method
• Results
• Discussion
• (page break)
• References
• (page break)
• Tables (page breaks)
• Figure Captions
• (page break)
• Figures (page breaks)

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Title

• GOAL - Give someone a rough idea of what the
  paper is about so that they know whether to read
  the abstract

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Abstract

• Goal - Convey the gist of the study. Why you did
  it. How you did it. What you found. What it
  means.

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Abstract

• 120 words
• Self-contained
• e.g., electronic databases
• Reader should know the basics of what you did and
  what you found, so they know whether to read the
  paper
• A sentence or two from each part of the paper
• Introduction - Purpose
• Method
• Results
• Discussion/conclusions

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Introduction

• Goals
• Provide the necessary background so that the
  reader can understand/appreciate what is to come.
  
• Build an ARGUMENT for why the experiment needs to
  be conducted (why the question needs to be
  answered)
• State the question

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Introduction

• Begin with title
• Background
• Not an exhaustive literature review or history
• What are the germinal ideas in this area
• What is the problem
• What are the specific studies that led to your
  work
• Build the case for your experiment using the
  previous literature and ideas, and a rational
  argument

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Introduction

• Purpose/rationale for you experiment
• State toward the end
• Briefly state your hypotheses and the specific
  manipulations you will use to test those
  hypotheses
• What results did you expect

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Introduction

• You are telling the story of why you did this
  experiment
• It should be readable
• But, its not a textbook or a history
• Its an ARGUMENT, not a book report

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Method Section

• Goal
• Allow someone to replicate study.
• ALL the ESSENTIAL details.

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PSY 301
General-to-specific organization of the
introduction
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Subjects/Participants Subsection

• How many
• How selected
• Payment/compensation
• Demographics
• Age
• Gender
• Special Circumstances
• Mortality?

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Materials/Apparatus Subsection

• What were the essential physical parts of
  method
• Equipment
• Model Numbers
• Software
• Publication information
• Stimulus Materials

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Procedure Subsection

• What You did
• Design
• Conditions/treatments
• Counterbalancing
• What happened to subjects
• Special instructions
• Paraphrase
• Deception
• Step by step
• Sessions, Blocks, Trials, Breaks
• Stimuli

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Procedure Subsection

• What You did
• Debriefing
• Sometimes COMPLEX statistical analyses included
  in a procedure section

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PSY 301
The reason for detailed method section
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Results

• Present major findings
• Good, Bad, and Ugly, But not the irrelevant
• Provide Detail
• Means, STDs
• Figures, Tables, Text
• Statistics (APA pp. 137-139)

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Discussion

• May want to restate findings
• What do they mean?
• Re hypotheses
• Re previous literature
• Re theory
• Problems - dont get carried away
• Future studies

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PSY 301
General-to-specific organization of the
discussion (APA style)
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PSY 301
Hourglass structure of a paper. A paper goes
from general to specific back to general.
Mitchell et al., p. 50
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PSY 301
Hourglass structure of a paper
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PSY 301
References
A list of all the other work that you
referred/talked about in the paper.

• APA has specific formats for references that
  differ based on if its an article, book, chapter,
  online source, etc.
• Section labeled References

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PSY 301
Reference types
Journal article by one author Thompson, L.
(1990). Negotiation behavior and outcomes
Empirical evidence and theoretical issues.
Psychological Bulletin, 108, 515-532. Journal
article by two authors Loesche, L. S., Tsai,
S. D. (1998). Beneficial effects of caffeine on
writing style. Human Behavior, 5, 1-43. Journal
article, more than six authors Wolchik, S. A.,
West, S. G., Sandler, I. N., Tein, J.,
Coatsworth, D., Lengua, L., et al. (2000). An
experimental evaluation of theory-based mother
and mother-child programs for children of
divorce. Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology, 68, 843-856.
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PSY 301
Reference types
Book chapter Booth, D. A. (1980). Conditioned
reactions in motivation. In F. M. Toates T. R.
Hall (Eds.), Analysis of motivational processes
(pp. 77-102). New York Academic
Press. Book Toates, F. M., Hall, T. R.
(Eds.). (1980). Analysis of motivational
processes. New York Academic Press.
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PSY 301
Citations in text
Smith and Jones (1968) showed that thinking about
reference formats is boring. Thinking about
reference formats is boring (Smith Jones,
1968). More than 2 authors First time Smith,
Jones, and Young (1999) found After first
time Smith et al. (1999) found More than 5
authors First time Smith, et al. (2002) found
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PSY 301
Writing is not easy - even if its not on rock