Experimental PsychologyPSY 433

APA Format Reports:

Results, Discussion, References

Exam on Thursday

Based on the textbook: Covers all chapters and pages noted on

syllabus (Ch 1-5 plus Appendix A & pgs noted)

No questions from labs No questions on APA format details

Powerpoints provide an outline of what I considered important enough to discuss in class – not a substitute for reading the book.

Projects Due in This Course

Proposal – similar to the kinds of proposals submitted to granting agencies. Contains parts of a full APA report plus extra

info needed by the agency. Written in future tense.

Final Report – similar to the manuscripts submitted to journals for publication. Written in APA format. Written in past tense because it describes

what happened.

Contents of Proposal

Required for the assignment due 5/10: Title Page Introduction Methods (written in future tense) References

Proposals to granting agencies also include: Bios of the researchers Budgets and performance timetables Lots of forms

Goals of a Research Proposal

Convince the reader that the question is important and needs to be explored.

Convince the reader that you are qualified to do the research (not part of the class project).

Describe what research has occurred previously and what the competing theories are.

Describe your plan for research in detail. Demonstrate that you have the resources to

carry out the plan.

Introduction

Start by stating your research question. Be specific, no general introductory remarks.

Next, review the literature by summarizing previous research. At least 5 peer-reviewed sources required. Do not describe each article sequentially –

give an overview emphasizing what they found out.

Conclude with an overview of your study and a prediction about the outcome of your own study stated in terms of theory.

Methods

Include subsections (with subheads), as described in the APA Manual: Subjects (participants) Materials or apparatus (describe computer,

your stimuli, any questionnaires). Procedures

Describe design Tell what happened to the subject in

chronological order Leave out things that happen in every experiment

Goals of the Final Report

Communicate to the scientific community. Clearly describe your project in sufficient detail

to permit replication. Convince readers that your findings support

your conclusions. How strong is the evidence? Does it justify your statements about theory?

Summarize your contribution to the ongoing debate on an important question. Pay special attention to your abstract!

Contents of Final Report

Must contain all sections listed in the APA Publication Manual, including: Title page Abstract Introduction Methods Results Discussion References Tables and Figures

You Are Telling a Story

Introduction -- state your research question, review the literature, make your predictions (hypotheses).

Methods – describe how you explored the question in sufficient detail to permit replication.

Results – describe your findings and test your hypotheses using statistics.

Discussion – analyze your results and put them back into the context of your question.

Abstract

This may be the only part of your paper that most people read, so make it count!

Write this last. Tell the story of your study, with one

sentence per report section. Do not exceed 120 words.

Use of Tenses

For the final report, revise the sections that were written for your proposal because they will be graded again.

Your proposal was written in the future tense (e.g., “subjects will…”), but for the final report… Put the Methods section in the past

tense. Report your results in the past tense.

Reporting Results

Only include the results that are relevant to your research question, not all data collected.

Go from the general to the specific. Provide tables for:

Multiple analyses. Complex experiments (factorial designs). ANOVA

Organize your results section around your hypotheses, testing one at a time.

Describing Data

Don’t forget to include descriptive statistics (means, SDs).

“The mean number of words recalled was calculated for each group. The means and the standard deviations for each group are shown in Figure 1.”

“Recall was higher for the drug group (M = 15, SD = 5.43) than for the placebo group (M = 10, SD = 4.98).”

Reporting Inferential Statistics

“The data were analyzed using an independent t-test. The t-test showed no significant difference between the mean of the placebo group and the mean of the drug group, t(34) = 1.35, p = .782.

“Using one-way ANOVA, gender differences were found to be significant, with females scoring higher on the average than males, F(1, 23) = 23.89, p =.025.”

Show more complex analyses in a table.

Report Exact p-Values

The old approach simply tested results against a standard of p<.05 by looking up the critical value in a table. Significance was an all-or-nothing judgment. Only the critical value (cutoff) was known, not

the exact p-value for your statistic. Today, SPSS gives exact p-values for every

result. Report those exact values (p=.031). NEVER report p > .05 for a non-significant

result. It implies use of p > .05 as a standard.

Ethics of Reporting Statistics

Don’t change your hypotheses (prediction) to fit what you actually discovered. Instead say you were surprised by your results.

Decide how many subjects to test in advance. Don’t stop collecting data because you

already have significant results. Don’t add more subjects because your results

are almost significant and would become so with a few more subjects.

State your reason for ending data collection.

Avoid “p-Hacking”

p-hacking is the practice of trying different approaches to data analysis until you find one that gives significant results. It is unethical.

Collect at least 20 observations per condition. Report all experimental conditions, even

failed manipulations (studies that didn’t work). List all variables collected in a study, even if

they are not analyzed in your paper. If there is any doubt, report results with and

without excluded subjects, covariates.

Changes in Reporting

The internet is making possible different approaches to report writing.

Because journals are no longer limited in space, authors can supply complete data sets, stimuli (materials) and alternative analyses. This represents a movement toward greater

transparency. Exact, not conceptual replications are needed

results are marginal.

References

Format varies depending on the type of material being referenced (e.g., book, article, web site).

Only list the sources actually mentioned in the text of your report. Everything listed in the references must be cited in text Everything cited in text must be listed in the

references. When you mention a source referenced in another

paper say: “as cited by…” and cite the source you actually read, not the original quoted by someone else.

Tables and Figures

Tables go first – always use APA format. Tables contain numbers or words. Figures are pictures and typically present

graphs of data, sample stimuli, equipment setup, diagrams of experiment flow, flowcharts of cognitive processes or diagrams of theoretical models.

Tables have titles that go at the top. Figures have captions that go at the bottom.

Include at least 1 of each in your final report.

Discussion

First, state what you discovered during your experiment. Do not repeat results but interpret them and

state whether your hypotheses were confirmed.

Tell whether your findings are consistent with what others have found.

Describe any threats to validity and problems with your experiment (confounds, bias, limitations of generalizability, problems).

Conclusion – what are the consequences?