Psychology Cognition Lab Report

Project description
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Results
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Presenting Data/Result
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Describing the Data
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Tables
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Graphs
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Inferential Statistics (F values, P values etc.)
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Discussion
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References
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Appendix
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Formatting
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Font
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Paragraphs, Justifying &
Margins
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Line Spacing
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Page Numbers
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Headers & Running Titles
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Numbers or Text?
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Exceptions: Expressed as Numerals
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Exceptions: Expressed as Text/Words
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Other Useful Sources and Links
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Writing Reports
Throughout your undergraduate degree you will be running experiments, analysing the results and
writing them up as a lab report. When we are marking these reports we are trying to assess
your
level of understanding
–
Have you grasped the back ground theory and research? Can you formulate
hypotheses? Do you understand how the research is conducted? Can you analyse and interpret your
results and apply them to the theory and findings already
mentioned?
Much like your essays these reports need to conform to the APA 6
th
Edition style. Regardless of the
content or subject area the reports will need to be presented and formatted in the same style.
Correctly formatting and writing a report is a sk
ill in itself, and is an important part in making sure
your report is clear and well presented.
How to use the guide
This guide has been put together to help you understand how to format your report, and what
content goes where. Reading this guide on its
own should be enough to allow you to format
your
report correctly. It ou
tlines the relevant sections within a report
and the subsections that might be
found in them.
It also points out what the APA manual says about certain practices that might be unclear.
For
example what does the APA guide say about using sub
–
headings in an abstract?
Should you write
nine or 9
?
Do you indent lines or not?
To get the most out of the guide though, and to ease the process of writing up your report,
it is
strongly
recommended
that you use it with the APA Lab Report Template word document.
You may find slight differences between what is stated here and what is in the full APA 6
th
edition
manual (such as whether to include author information). This is because this guide is for w
riting lab
reports whereas the APA 6
th
edition focuses on writing full manuscripts, usually for journal
submission.
The Template
The APA Lab Report Template word document is already pre
–
formatted for you. The line spacing,
font type/size are already defi
ned. Example headings are in place and brief examples of content are
present for each report section.
To use the template
simply
replace the example content with your report inf
ormation. This template
should be sufficient for most undergraduate lab reports
. Do make sure you pay attention to any
specific assessment requirements though, if you are unsure about these or any conflicts with APA
style contact the relevant module leader.
4
Title
For some reports you may be given a title, for others you will have t
o decide on your own. Titles
should be relatively short (approximately 15 words) and should clearly indicate the focus of the
investigation and the key variables/measures.
Abstract
The purpose of the abstract is to provide a short summary of the research area, the research
undertaken and the findings. This should give a potential reader the information they require to
quickly decide whether they want to continue reading.
For a lab r
eport you should
include
:
?
An o
utline the area of investigation briefly.
?
B
asic participant/sample information.
?
Key elements of the design
and methodology. For example was the experiment between,
within or mixed? Was it an EEG study? Was a novel procedure us
ed? Etc.
?
Brief report of key findings. For any statistically significant findings include the relevant
info
rmation such as the p value,
effect size
, correlation coefficient etc.
?
A short conclusion of what these findings mean. Are there any theoretical or
practical
implications?
The abstract is traditionally short and ranges between 100
–
250 words. The abstract should be
placed on a page of
its
own, and presented as a single
paragraph
without indentation
.
What does the APA say?
Q: Can I use subheadings within my abstract?
You may find it useful to break your abstract down into subheadings such as ‘Background’, ‘Method’, ‘Results’
and so on when drafting your report but APA style requires that the final abstract be presented as one single
double spaced paragraph.
There shoul
d be no subheadings in the final submitted version of your abstract.
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Introduction
The introduction is the start of the main body of the report. As the name suggests
you are
introducing the research area and the rationale for the research you have conducted to the reader.
In your introduction you need to present:
?
A
clear case for why this area is being investigated
–
what is the background to the area and
what makes
it important/interesting?
?
The relev
ant theories and research examples
, making a clear
link
between them and the
reason for your research.
?
The basic information surrounding your research
–
what did you address and how?
?
Your hypotheses. Ensure these are
phrased in terms of significant differences or significant
relationships/correlations (depending on your design).
It is important that a clear and logical progression is demonstrated from the introduction of the area
background all the way through to your
hypotheses. It should be clear to the reader why you have
decided to conduct the experiment and why you have formulated the hypotheses.
It may be useful to think of the introduction as an inverted pyramid
–
start broad with the general
theory, gradually na
rrow your discussion to a specific area and examples of research, and then
finally narrow to the point of the introduction at the end, what you have done and your hypotheses.
What does the APA say?
Q: Should I have a separate Introduction and Literature Review?
APA style is to have
just one section, the Introduction
. All the information you may have
previously included in a
literature review can be placed in the Introduction.
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Method
The details of how various experiments were conducted can differ e
xtensively (brain imaging, visual
experiment, eye
–
tracking etc.), but the purpose of the method section remains the same when
writing your report; to
provide the reader with the details of how the experiment was conducted.
This should be in sufficient deta
il to ensure the reader understands exactly what was attempted as
well as providing enough information for potential replication.
The method section is traditionally broken down into several subsections. The details within them,
and even the subsection hea
dings, may change from experiment to experiment.
Participants
If you are conducting an experiment with humans then you will refer to them, and this section, as
participants. If you are conducting an experiment with non
–
human animals then you will refer to
them as subjects.
In this subsection you should present the
characteristics
of your participants. These should be the
relevant
characteristics
that would aid replication or judgements about generalising the data.
Common
characteristics can include (but are
not
limited
to):
?
Total number of participants (N)
?
Number of participants in each condition
?
Age
?
Gender identity/Sex
?
Ethnicity
?
Location/Nationality
?
Languages Spoken
?
Disability
?
Level of Education
?
Sexual orientation
If the information is a continuous variable
such as age then
you could
present the mean, standard
deviation and the range. If the information is
categorical
/nominal then
you could
present the
frequency.
You may find it useful to break down some of the
above
information by conditions if
relevant
to your
experiment
–
for example the amount of men and women in condition A, and then condition B.
In your participant subsection you should also include information
on
the sampling method utilised
(convenience, random etc.) and if you had any exclusion c
riteria (for example if you only recruited
right handed participants
or those with perfect eyesight
).
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Materials and/or Apparatus
Here you should clearly indicate and describe how the data for your experiment was collected. Was
a questionnaire used? Was a
computer program used to present visual stimuli? Was some sort of
brain imaging involved?
Include the key information about the materials or apparatus used
–
The type or model of
equipment, the software if known, the version of the questionnaire etc. You
may find it useful to
refer readers to the appendices for examples of stimuli or questionnaires.
Try to avoid including details that are not relevant to the experiment. For example it is not required
to list a pen for filling a questionnaire in unless you
are expecting the pen to be relevant to
participant performance. But it might be relevant to include details on whether a monitor was high
definition or not if you are
presenting visual stimuli.
Design
In this subsection you outline the research design used. For example was a between (independent),
within (repeated) or mixed design used?
If you have conditions then these should be clearly described, along with how
par
ticipants were
assigned to these conditions. The differences between the participant
experiences
in the conditions
should be
clear as well as any steps taken to control potential confounding variables.
In this section you can, if you have not already, clea
rly
specify
the Independent Variables (IV’s) and
Dependant Variables (DV’s)
and how they have been operationalized
.
The different conditions are
lik
ely different levels of your IV.
What does the APA say?
Q: Should I use Materials or Apparatus as the heading?
It depends on what you have used. Traditional pen/pencil and paper materials are usually referred to as
materials. Mechanical or comput
er equipment is usually referred to as apparatus.
If you use both materials and apparatus then use both in the heading.
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Procedure
The procedure should take the reader through h
ow the experiment was performed and the tasks
involved.
This might include a summary of the instructions given to the participants (though the full
instructions should be placed in the appendices)
, details about the setting of the experiment and
informatio
n about the duration of the experiment
.
Again there should be enough detail here for
re
plication but unnecessary
information should be avoided.
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Results
The result section can be daunting but it is important to bear in mind that its main purpose is to
present the data and analysis clearly enough, and in sufficient detail, to support your later
discussion.
Generally your result section will take the following order:
1.
A description of the data (descriptive statistics, relevant graphs or tables)
2.
Any
assum
ptions about the data, and any
relevant tests
(such as normality, or homogeneity
of variance)
3.
Inferential Statistical Tests
When writing your results assume a reasonable level of statistical knowledge from the reader. You
do not need to cover basic concept
s behind your analysis or cite sources that do so. However if there
is a debate or some contention over certain types of analysis or procedure then you may include
citations to support your decision.
For example it is not necessary to cite a description of
a particular test of normality, however if you
come to the judgement that your sample size is sufficiently large enough to assume normality
without a test then you should cite support.
Presenting Data/Results
Describing the Data
Before you can meaningfully discuss what the results of your inferential test mean you need to
describe your data for the reader.
This first involves highlighting any missing data or data cleaning.
Participants may have missed skipped questions
or a
record
ing error might have lost some. Through
examining the data you might also have chosen to remove any outliers. This should all be stated.
You can then describe your data. If you have several conditions you can present the mean scores (or
other relevant DV’s
) for each, making it clear to the reader what has initially been found. For
example you may have found a higher mean score one condition.
The data should be presented clearly and meaningfully. You may find a graph or a table is useful.
Tables
Tables are u
seful for presenting a summary of your data, and can allow the reader to easily compare
important information. The general rule is that the information presented here is clear
and that is
supplements you description of the data rather than repeating it
.
E
ntries in your table that are being compared should be placed next to each other. For this reason
entries such as standard deviations are often segregated from the means.
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