Research methods in psychology
Assignment 2: Practical report
1. OVERVIEW
In Assignment 2 you will write a full report based on the Practical 2 study, which explored the effect/influence of being altruistic/generous on romantic desirability/attraction (Use one term from each and keep it consistent throughout the report).
Your report should include the following sections as subheadings:
• Title
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Method
o Participants
o Design
o Materials
o Procedure
• Results
• Discussion
• References
The word limit for this report is 1,500 words (+/-10%). The Title, Abstract, and References do not contribute towards your overall word count, but everything else does. This includes any tables of descriptive statistics and in-text citations.
You should write your report in the third person, avoiding first person pronouns such as “I” or “my”.
2. SUBMITTING THE REPORT
When uploading your assignment on Canvas, please name it with your student number and then “4PS003 Assignment 2”. For example, 1515002 4PS003 Assignment 2.
3. CONTENTS OF THE REPORT
a) Title
The Title must be concise and informative, and should not simply list the title of the practical. You should provide enough information to give the reader a good idea of what the study is all about. Have a look at some published articles for examples of titles. APA guidelines suggest a title should be no longer than 12 words.
b) Abstract
The Abstract is essentially a report in miniature, i.e. a self-contained and brief summary of the study. You should describe the rationale for the study as well as the methodology, findings and the main conclusions. It is written in one paragraph and should be approximately 200 words in length. Avoid citations and statistics in the abstract.
c) Introduction
In this section you should review the background material (existing findings and theories) relevant to the study and outline the precise problem under investigation. You should also briefly outline your method and explain why the study was carried out. You should end with a clear statement of the hypotheses/hypothesis.
You only need to provide the alternative/experimental hypothesis.
Your Introduction should be approximately 500 words in length.
A summary of the research in this area can be found on the “Modules” and “Assignment 2 (report) information”. There are a few papers on the topic, but feel free to include papers not included in this review, if they fit the topic area. Note: this review paper was published in 2019. There is 3 years of research still out there on the topic, so do conduct a thorough literature search.
d) Method
The Method section of your report should contain a step-by-step account of how the study was conducted. As a general guide, enough detail needs to be recorded to allow other experimenters to replicate the study.
Your method section should be around 350-400 words in length and must be divided into the following sub-sections:
• Participants
• Design
• Materials
• Procedure
Use the above subheadings in your Method.
For details about what to include in these sub-sections, see the slides from Lecture 10. All the experimental materials are on Canvas.
e) Results
This section provides the reader with a clear, concise summary of the data. This section should be around 200-250 words in length.
How can I access the data?
The Practical 2 data is available in ‘Assignment 2 information’ section in Canvas in Excel format. You will need to transfer this data into SPSS, just as you did for the data from practical 1 in Workshop 6 onwards. In Workshops 11 and 12 you will be able to work on the Results section of your report with support from members of the module team.
What should I include in the Results section?
Provide the following information in your results section:
• The descriptive stats should be presented in the text, a graph OR in a table to show the means and standard deviation for attraction/desirability ratings related to altruistic and non-altruistic targets. A brief description of the trends shown in the table/graph must also be provided. You should only do one.
• After the above, you should report the paired samples t-test comparing desirability towards altruistic and non-altruistic targets. You will need to interpret the p value, and ideally, report the effect size (Cohen’s d) and interpret the effect size (i.e. state what this value means).
Remember to avoid discussing the results in this section – you will do that in the discussion.
f) Discussion
This is the section in which you can interpret the results of the experiment and discuss their meaning. It is important that the Discussion relates the results to the literature described in the Introduction. You may also briefly comment on any weaknesses in the study and outline ideas for future research. Try and end this section with a clear conclusion.
This section should be approximately 400 words.
g) References
The References section should contain each reference cited in the body of your work and should be constructed following APA conventions. Please note that you only need to include a reference for sources that you have explicitly cited. For example, you may use Brace et al.’s (2016) SPSS textbook when analysing the results, but if you have not actually cited Brace et al. (2016), you do not need to mention it in the References.
