HOW TO WRITE A REPORT!

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HOW TO WRITE A REPORT!
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REPORT?What's that about.

• Great, that time of year has come and you get to
  be a 'real psychologists'! What will
  differentiate a good report from bad report will
  be whether you are able to be objective and
  think like a psychologists.

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An investigation into the influence of Music on
memory.

• Before you set your title out you would have
  completed some background reading in your choice
  of topic.
• Officially this is called a literature review.

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ABSTRACT.

• The Abstract should be about 250 words long. It
  should concisely summarise the
• Aim- The aim was to investigate
• Background-Your hypothesis (H1/H2).
• Design- Independent/Repeated Measures. Variables.
• Sample- Selection ?Girls ?Boys.
• Results and statistical conclusions of your
  study- Inferential Descriptive..Main findings.
• It should be written in the past tense, in other
  words you should not write I found.

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INTRODUCTION.

• You should inform your reader of the background
  to your investigation. Psychologists tend to use
  a
• upside down pyramid approach to writing
  introductions.

HUH????
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INTRODUCTION.

• General introduction
• Specifics
• Actual Aim
• Your Hypothesis

Approx 250-500 words.
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INTRODUCTION con.

• Also state the implications of setting a 0.05
  level of significance.
• Even in the event of your results being found to
  be statistically significant you recognise there
  is a 1 20 probability that your results occurred
  by chance.

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METHOD..

• Your method should include descriptions of the
  following
• Design
• Materials
• Variables
• Sample
• Procedure.
• Not necessarily in the above order.

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PROCEDURE

• An exceptionally crucial section of the report as
  this is what the reader would follow if they were
  to replicate your investigation. It should
  outline from start to finish what your
  participants did without exception, and end with
  you thanking them and thoroughly debriefing each
  participant.
• It is a step-step guide of what to do think about
  recipes in a cookbook all steps would need to be
  followed in order to make that perfect soufflé!!!

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RESULTS

• Present your results in a meaningful way.
• Next step is some descriptive statistics and an
  inferential statistics called
• Chi-squared (test of association)
• Mann Whitney
• T-Test
• Spearman's Rho (test of frequency)
• Your tutor will let you know what test is
  appropriate.

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RESULTScont

• First things first..you need to draw a table to
  put in input your raw data, this is the actual
  scores/answers you take from each participant.
• The next step will be to tabulate some
  descriptive statistics.

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Descriptive Statistics?????

• These are the first calculations we complete with
  the raw data.
• Mean-Add all scores together and divide by number
  of participants.
• Median- The Middle value.
• Mode- The most frequent answer.
• Range- The highest value minus the lowest value.

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Tables/ Graphs.

• You could display your results via a bar chart,
  histogram, pie chart scatter gram..

Any of the above are acceptable as are others
that are not included in this example
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Inferential Statistics.

• You will use an inferential statistic in your
  results. This will allow you to accept/reject
  your null hypothesis, and thus reject/accept your
  experimental.
• Click here for a worked example of Chi squared
  and Mann Whitney analysis.

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DISCUSSION.

• Refer to your introduction and your aim keep it
  structured and remember the audience the report
  is aimed at..academics like yourself, teachers
  etc.
• Explain your findings referring to some
  psychology.It is also useful in a Discussion
  section to refer to your descriptive statistics
  (graphs and charts) to back up what you say -
  otherwise what was the point of doing them! Use
  language like 'As can be seen from Fig ? on page
  .'

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Discussion.

• Identify limitations in your investigation e.g.
  your design, method, sampling technique
  etc.Identify further improvements that could be
  made
• Identify future research
• Lastly in the report you need to end with a
  conclusion.

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CONCLUSION..

• A conclusion is a brief statement.
• What you were aiming to do.
• What you found (Descriptive/Inferential).
• Did the findings support or reject your
  hypothesis.
• What the research was based on (piece of
  research).

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APPENDICE..

• An example of raw data,
• Stimulus sheets (word lists etc)
• Consent form
• Debrief sheet
• Standard instruction sheet.
• Calculations (statistics)
• Also ensure you have a contents page at the front
  of the report.