Writing Your Psychology Research Report

Writing Your Psychology Report
Reports of Psychological Research follow a set format. The standard report always
contains the following sections in the order presented below.
Title
The title should give a clear indication of the main idea of the
report. It should be simple, concise and (generally) no more
than twelve words long.
Example: Left brain functioning versus right brain functioning
o Recognition of emotions from facial expressions
Introduction
The introduction describes the focus of the investigation and
contains information that explains why the study was
conducted.
The introduction should begin from a very general perspective
and gradually become more specific to focus on the present
research activity.
At the end of the introduction state the aim(s) and hypothesis
(or hypotheses) of your empirical research activity. The
hypothesis may be written with a sub-heading or embedded
into your text.
The aim is a very broad statement that outlines why you are
conducting the research.
The hypothesis is a more specific statement it is a
prediction, based on theory, about the expected results of the
experiment.
A description of the participants needs to be included as a
sub-section of your introduction. You need to explain how the
participants were chosen and the key features that might
influence the results, such as gender, age, class, education
level or racial group.
The introduction should be about 200 words long.
Results
This section contains a summary of the main findings of your
study, using illustrative material such as graphs, or tables.
The material presented must be directly related to the
question asked in the hypothesis.
Numerical data should be presented as a table or a graph.
Raw data should not be included in your results section.
The types of graph used depend on the nature of data
collected and the analysis conducted such as histograms,
line graphs, scatter plots
Each graph or table must have a title and be labelled
appropriately. Graph axes must be labelled and a legend or
key may be needed.
Tables and graphs should be labelled e.g. Figure 1.... Table
1...
Results should be summarised briefly in words, providing an
explanation of what the graph or table shows.
There is no need to have the same results presented in a
table and graph. Generally no more than 2 graphs or tables
should be needed in the results section.
Discussion
The discussion is an interpretation and evaluation of the
information given in the results section.
The discussion should have 4 subsections Interpretation,
Evaluation (including Validity & Reliability), Strengths &
Weaknesses, Ethics
The discussion section begins with a summary of the findings
and a statement as to whether the hypothesis was supported
or not. [Note that the findings of an experiment cannot prove
the hypothesis, they merely support or do not support it. If
the results of your research activity are not conclusive, you
may still be able to note any trends in the findings.] You then
attempt to reach a critical understanding about that answer.
Interpreting the result involves explaining what the result
indicates. Eg. the mean score of the treatment group was
higher than the mean score of the control group which
suggests that the treatment does have an effect.
Evaluating the result means making a judgement about the
result. Eg the difference is too small to be considered
important. You should also evaluate whether the experiment
was a fair test of the research question (validity and
reliability). Discuss any methodological problems that may
have interfered with the results of the experiment.
Within Interpreting and Evaluating, the following aspects
should also be considered:
Sample size and representativeness
Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the research design.
Consider matters such as suitability of measures, process of
gathering data (were there any glitches?)
Discuss ethics: Sampling procedures, briefing & debriefing of
participants, informed consent, any benefit to participants, do
not refer simply to the 5 basic ethical principles; you need to
discuss ethics that are RELEVANT to this particular research.
A good discussion should also contain concluding remarks.
The conclusion is a brief summary of the main findings of the
results. It should be specific. What do the results suggest?
Can the results be generalised to other groups of people?
Your discussion should include the following paragraphs:
interpretation, strengths and weaknesses (and suggested
improvements), ethics, conclusion.
Word Limits
Your individual report should be a maximum of 1500 words
(excluding proposal).
The word limit includes every word except the title page,
index, graphs and reference list. Include footnotes and
appendices.
Printed below is an example of a proposal. It doesnt meet the
maximum word length, which is fine as long as all the necessary
elements are covered. Its strengths are that it contains a simple
question/hypothesis and clearly identifies suitable data sets.
Proposal (max. 250 words)

My proposal is for a report that uses data collected for the
stereotyping research program. The report will use quantitative
objective data. The sources of data are:
Age (divided into groups): under 25, between 25 and 45,
over 45
Number of negative items recalled correctly
Our class decided on a hair colour from a list of stereotypes. Each

student had to recruit at least one participant a blonde, a red-
head and a brunette.
Each participant was given a list of 15 items, purported to be in a
backpack of a blonde. Two other lists were prepared - one for a red
head, one for a brunette. After a set time the participant was asked
to recall the items in the backpack. The number of correctly recalled
items is a quantitative measure of stereotyping. Each list had 5
positive, 5 negative and 5 neutral items, so there are 3 sub-
measures of stereotyping.1
Hypothesis
The younger the persons age, the more they stereotype blonde
people.
Explanation
I have proposed this hypothesis on the assumption that
stereotyping is prevalent in society and appears to sometimes be
related to a persons age. The investigation was conducted to see if
people also stereotyped people by hair colour.
Analysis
My report will compare three age groups to see if there are
differences on how many negative items about blondes are
recalled.2
1
It is not necessary to give this detail about the study, unless it explains something about the measures
used.
2
At this point, the sort of statistical analysis to be done could also be explained such as type of
graphs used.

Writing Your Psychology Research Report

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What are the main sections of a psychology report?

What information should be included in the introduction section?

Writing Your Psychology Report

Proposal (max. 250 words)

Our class decided on a hair colour from a list of stereotypes. Each

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