Key Research and Study Skills in Psychology

This book provides students with a wide range of research and study skills necessary for achieving a successful classifi...

Author: Sieglinde McGee

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This book provides students with a wide range of research and study skills necessary for achieving a successful classification on a psychology degree course. Its replaces the stress and fear experienced when encountering essays, reports, statistics and exams with a sense of confidence, enthusiasm and even fun. Sieglinde McGee presents indispensable instruction, advice and tips on note making and note taking, evaluating academic literature, writing critical essays, preparing for and doing essay and MCQ exams, understanding research methods and issues associated with conducting research, writing and presenting reports and research and also some important computer skills. Examples provided will show how to score well on assignments and exams and also the sort of approach, layout, errors, omissions or answer-style that would achieve a lower grade. Practical exercises and interactive tasks are integrated throughout to clarify key points and give the students a chance to practise on their own. This is a useful resource for students taking modules in study and research skills in psychology and an essential guide for all other students studying on psychology programmes.

SIEGLINDE MCGEE is an Associate of the School of Psychology at Trinity

College, Dublin, where she taught for several years.

McGee KEY RESEARCH & STUDY SKILLS IN PSYCHOLOGY

‘I am happy to recommend this to my students as it covers jargon without using jargon and explains all those simple things that many academics take for granted. It also gives good examples of how to get the best from your time studying psychology from how to write good essays to the rules of writing lab reports.’ Dr Joy Coogan, University of East London

Sieglinde McGee

Key Research & Study Skills In Psychology

ISBN: 978-1-84860-021-8

Cover image © graficart.net/Alamy | Cover design by Wendy Scott

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© Sieglinde McGee 2010 First published 2010 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road New Delhi 110 044 SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd 33 Pekin Street #02-01 Far East Square Singapore 048763 Library of Congress Control Number: 2009932182 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-84860-020-1 ISBN 978-1-84860-021-8 (pbk)

Typeset by C&M Digitals (P) Ltd, Chennai, India Printed in India at Replika Press Pvt Ltd Printed on paper from sustainable resources

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To my parents Donard & Ailis

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CONTENTS

Preface Acknowledgements

viii ix

1

Useful Computer Skills

2

Note Making and Study Tips

22

3

Evaluating Academic Literature

45

4

Good Essay Writing

61

5

Good Writing Skills and Basic Numeracy

93

6

Doing Exams

104

7

Psychological Research Skills

132

8

Writing Reports

152

9

Presenting Your Research

174

Appendix 1 Appendix 2

The Sample Essays from the Exercise in Chapter 4, with Comments A Sample Report, with Comments

1

186 196

References

204

Index

207


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PREFACE

When I was an undergraduate I got the impression that students were expected to be divinely inspired about many things: how to perform certain tasks on a computer, how to evaluate academic material, how to write university-standard essays and exam answers, how to write reports and how best to study. I was a mature student and had successfully completed two professional qualifications in the years preceding my entry to university. In the almost complete absence of any guidance on how to do these things at university, I kept doing what had worked so well in those other courses. My grades were quite good but I had no idea how to improve on them. I was already spending seven days a week in the library, often one of the first to arrive in the morning and one of the last to be thrown out at night, so more work was clearly not the answer. I had been nationally-ranked in one set of professional exams so a lack of intelligence was clearly not the answer either. Requests for advice from lecturers were met with unhelpful replies such as ‘study harder’, ‘read more’ and ‘if you were doing something wrong then you would be failing’. The epiphany occurred when, as a doctoral student, I started teaching. There is a simple strategy that, if followed or adapted to suit the individual, can turn those 2:2s and 2:1s into better 2:1s and firsts. It is not about studying harder but about studying smarter. It has been my intention to write this book ever since that day and its aim is to share with you the secret to achieving higher grades in psychology. Once you master the techniques you will find that producing essays and exam answers in the upper 2:1 and the first-class range will become the norm. Each chapter states aims and learning outcomes and a note on what is expected of you at university level. There are ‘think about this for a moment’ boxes throughout to get you thinking actively about the material. Chapter 1 provides tips on a variety of computer packages and tools. Chapter 2 highlights the difference between note taking and note making, and looks at studying, learning styles, motivation and literature searches. Chapter 3 shows you how to evaluate academic literature. Chapter 4 takes you through the process of writing university-level essays in psychology and includes two full essays for an exercise that should help bring together everything covered within the chapter (see the annotated versions in Appendix 1). Chapter 5 focuses on good writing, Chapter 6 deals with preparing for and doing MCQ and essay exams, while Chapter 7 talks you through the process of designing and conducting research. Chapter 8 deals with writing reports (see the annotated sample in Appendix 2), while Chapter 9 covers the presentation of your research. There are also tips provided throughout the book for students who are studying via distance education or who may have a disability.


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to all of the students whom it has been my pleasure to work with over the years and a special thank you to three colleagues and dear friends whose tips, comments and feedback throughout the writing process have been so invaluable: Maria Jordan-O’Reilly, Maeve Mangaoang and Maria McEvoy.


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1

USEFUL COMPUTER SKILLS

Aims It is presumed that you know how to use a computer when you come to study at university level so if you have limited or no prior experience then you will have to teach yourself or take courses. It is entirely up to you to learn to type, if you cannot do so already, and to find your way around the popular word-processing and spreadsheet software. This chapter gives some tips on how to use some of these packages and it highlights some of the differences between Microsoft Office 2007 and all the previous versions of their popular software. By the end of this chapter, therefore, you should know: • • • • •

some of the basics of using a networked computer keyboard shortcuts and some features in Microsoft Word some useful tips for Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat what virtual learning environments (VLEs) and turnitin.com are about the existence of reference databases and online survey tools.

What is expected at university? You may already have had extensive experience of using a variety of software packages by the time you start university but there are many students who will have had limited or even no prior experience. Your school may not have been in a position to offer computer classes, you may not have had easy access to a computer or you may be returning to education after many years working in areas that did not require computer use. However, while you will be trained on the use of computer software such as SPSS, or other statistics programs, or in-house software for labs, it is likely that the only other computer training that you will get at university level is a handout that may be available through your university’s IT services. From time to time the IT services in universities may offer classes on any of a variety of different computer packages and it is recommended that you avail yourself of any of these that you can, if you feel that they would be helpful.

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Getting started Logging in/out You may already be familiar with having to enter a username and password to be able to access a computer as many newer versions of operating software require that you set up this facility. If it is your own personal computer then you are free to choose your username and password. Your university will issue you with a username and password, most likely as part of the materials that you receive on the day that you register, so that you can use their computer facilities. It is essential that you memorise these! Usually you will not be given a choice of username or password. If the department in which you are studying has its own private computer room, which it may use for teaching or lab work, or allows students to access lecture notes or other materials online, then you may also be issued with a separate username and password for their machines or materials. Your online behaviour can be monitored so it is very important that you never give your log-in details to anybody – you will be held entirely responsible for any misuse of facilities while you are logged in. When you are finished using the computer you must log out! These options will either be in the start menu (on a PC) or in the ‘help’ drop-down menu on a Mac.

Passwords Your username may be a number or some version of your name (usually surname and initial or first name.surname) but your password is likely to be a combination of letters and numbers. They are case sensitive (which means that you must type them exactly as they were given to you) and the reason for the rather complicated password is so that it will be very hard to guess. Hackers love to find people who use simple or easy-to-guess passwords. You should always change your password from time to time but there are some important points that you should consider in choosing it:

Box 1.1 – – – – – – –

never use the word ‘password’ do not use your name or the name of anyone you know do not use the name of a pet or any other animal do not use the name of a TV show or character do not use any word at all as your password do not use birthdays, anniversaries or any other dates make sure that your password contains a mixture of letters (at least one capital letter) and numbers – never give your password to anybody! – if you suspect that someone knows your password then change it immediately.

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The first six items on that list are also the first things that any hacker will try when trying to guess your password. Why make it easy for them? When you change your university password make sure that you do not forget the old one as you can sometimes find that different parts of the university computer system will seem to have no idea that you have changed your password and will still expect you to provide the old one. This is annoying but it does happen.

Computer networks Unless your school had a computer network or you have been working in offices or businesses that used networked computers, you will probably have had little to no experience of using them. The key software is usually saved on each individual machine but sometimes you may have to go to a shared network drive (just a different folder on the computer) to find other software. You will probably be assigned network space in which you can save your work and if so you should make sure that you also save a copy onto a disk. Networks can crash and if they do then you will not be able to access any of the information that you have saved on it until the problem has been resolved. This happened to my undergraduate class in the weeks just before our thesis was due in. We had all saved our work onto the network because we had been told to do so and only a few of us had made backup copies on disk. You may find that a networked computer is much faster than you have been used to but if there is heavy traffic on it then it can be quite slow, so be patient. Networks are monitored so you should not attempt to access websites or download software or imagery that would be in breach of university regulations. This monitoring is done by software so do not make the mistake of thinking that if the security cameras can’t see what you’re doing then you are getting away with it. You may find that you are forbidden from saving anything onto the hard drives of the computers in your university, which means that you will have to save it onto an external disk. If you can save to the hard disk of a university computer then make sure that you save a copy to your network storage, your USB key, and/or that you email it to yourself. This is because your file will be freely available to the next people to use that computer, that you will have to go to that same machine to be able to access it or that you may lose it completely if the stored documents are cleared out at night.

Basics of file management I cannot stress enough just how important it is that you save your work very frequently. If you stop to think, to look something up, to blow your nose – anything at all – then save your work. Computers can crash when you least expect it and networks will also go down. In addition, the latest version of Microsoft Word has a really annoying habit of crashing occasionally, usually when you are trying to save your work. Sometimes it’s a crash where it just shuts itself down, sometimes it just starts scrolling rapidly to the top of your document before freezing and other times it just hangs while trying to save; if it does any of these things then know that it wasn’t you. Various versions of

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SPSS (the major statistics package that you will most likely learn to use) have an annoying bug whereby you will think that your work is being saved when actually this is not the case. When this happens your work will be lost unless you select all that you have done, select copy, open an Excel file and paste it into that. You can spot that SPSS is having one of its fits if you keep an eye on the name of your file as it appears in the top left-hand corner of your screen. If the full name of the file is visible then it is saving when you tell it to. If it changes the name to an eight-character file name that contains a ~ symbol, then it is not saving anything (for example, mydataf~.sav). This is one of the reasons why it is recommended that you input all of your raw data in Excel and then copy and paste what you want into SPSS later. If you are going to type something then open Word and immediately save the blank document. When you select ‘save as’ you will have the option of giving the file any name that you want and also to save it anywhere that you want. Use the various drop-down menus provided to save the file onto your disk, rather than onto the university computer. This way you won’t be unable to find it later or forget to transfer it to your disk. The same applies with files that you are creating using any software; save the blank file first in the location that you want and then add your text or data. Get into the habit or organising your computer files from Day One. Do not just save them onto the disk presuming that you will easily find a file when you want it. This will be especially important with your statistics files (see Chapter 7). Create folders with clear titles (keep them short) and place the relevant files into those folders. Give your file a clear name, something short (no more than a few words) that will let you know at a glance what it is about. If you do not choose a name then the computer does it for you, poorly. A blank Word document gets the default (automatic) name of ‘document’, for example, and if it contains any text then the suggested name offered by Word is the first sentence of the text. If you download a journal article from one of the online databases available through your university’s library website (see Chapter 2) then definitely choose a name for it while saving it as quite often the default name is just a number, which is not at all helpful. I usually use a few keywords that let me know what the paper is about or if I have a folder of articles on the same topic then I use the authors and publication year as the file name. It is also a very good idea to start compiling a references database from Day One. You can do this in Word, or any word-processing package, or you can use a standard references database such as EndNote, if you have access to it. References are the full citations of the books, articles and other sources that were mentioned in the text and there is a specific format in which you must produce them (see Chapter 4).

File extensions Quite a few people have asked me what is meant by a file extension, usually after they have been told by someone to change the file extension in an attempt to open the document using a different program. The name of every computer file, from basic lines of codes to complex databases, usually ends in a three- or four-letter KEY RESEARCH AND STUDY SKILLS IN PSYCHOLOGY

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extension (it can be fewer or more letters and numbers) and it is this that enables the computer, and the user, to identify the type of file that it is. If you double-click or right-click on the name of the file (not the icon) then you can alter the name of the file, although there is no guarantee that just changing the file extension will enable you to open it with software different to that in which it was created. You do not need to worry too much about this but I have provided a table below that identifies some of the most common file extensions. It can be a help when you are trying to organise your files or when you are trying to identify which files are your Table 1.1 .doc

Some common file extensions

Microsoft Word document of any version before Word 2007

.docx

Microsoft Word document created by Word 2007

.xls

Microsoft Excel spreadsheet of any version before Excel 2007

.xlsx

Microsoft Excel spreadsheet created by Excel 2007

.rtf

Rich text format. Basic text style that can be opened by most notepad or word-processing software

.pps

Microsoft PowerPoint presentation of any version before Office 2007

.ppsx

Microsoft PowerPoint presentation created by Office 2007

.wps

Microsoft Works document – never submit your assignments in this format as they cannot be opened in Word, which is what your lecturer or tutor will have on their computer

.pub

Microsoft Publisher document

.txt

Text file; very basic often plain text often created using Notepad

.sav

An SPSS database

.spo

An output file (i.e. all your statistical analyses) for SPSS

.pdf

Portable document format. They can be created in Microsoft Word if you download the appropriate plug-in file but are most commonly associated with Adobe Reader, which you can download for free. They are created and can be edited in Adobe Acrobat, which is not free

.exe

Executable file. This is a piece of software, a program, and you should only run it if you know what it is. If you receive one in your email do not open it (unless you know what it is and were expecting it) as it may be a virus, worm or trojan

.bat

Batch file; a type of executable file so do not open it if you receive one in your email

.dll

Dynamic link library file. Never delete these as they are a very important part of your computer’s software

.bin

Binary file. Never delete these as they are part of your computer’s system software

.gif

A common picture format

.jpg

Pronounced as jay-peg; this is a common format for pictures

.bmp

Bitmap, a common format for pictures but often a much larger file size than other formats as it may have a much higher resolution

.dot

A Microsoft Word document template. The default settings for Word are saved in a file called normal.dot and if you want to change the default settings you will be asked if you really want to overwrite that file

.wav

A common sound file

.mp3

A common music file

.zip

A compressed file or folder of files that will have to opened in order to access the contents. Often used for fast transfer of large amounts of material via the web

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notes, your journal articles, your dataset or your statistics output. If you come across one that is not listed here (there are thousands of them!) and are curious as to what it is, then check www.file-extensions.org.

USB keys The best way to store your files is on a USB key. A 1GB stick will hold every file for your whole undergraduate degree, all your notes, your essays, your lab reports and the journal articles that you download. Do not rely on just one as they are small and can be easily lost or damaged. It is possible to buy a three-pack of 1GB sticks for around £20–30 (€ 25–35) so do not spend that much on a single one. Brand names are pretty much irrelevant as a memory stick/key is just a stick of RAM within a plastic coat so you are not getting a better one by buying a more expensive one. It is perfectly fine to use one as your main storage unit but do make backups regularly. They are reasonably tough but if you mishandle or step on them then you can break them, so be careful. Any computer made in this century will have at least one USB port.

Email You will be assigned an email address when you register at the start of your first year. You may already have several email addresses but it is very important that you use your university one, as it is to this one that important information about timetables or exams or deadlines will be sent. What you can do, however, is to set your university email account to forward into another account that you have, preferably one that has an almost limitless storage capacity, for example gmail. There will be an option somewhere in one of the menus of your email account so just follow those instructions. It is very handy to have all your email accounts forwarding to a single account, a non-university one, as when you leave the university you will not have to change your email address. For example, you have your university email forwarding to your gmail account. Once you leave university you will no longer be able to log-in to that account but because you set it up to transfer all incoming messages into your gmail account you will continue to receive any messages that anyone sends to your old address. This is particularly useful if you attended or presented at a conference but then left university or moved to a different one. The delegates can still contact you by using your old address and without having to track down your new details. If you are using an email system that shows you when your various contacts are also logged in – for example, in gmail you will see a green blob beside their name – then remember that this means they may be able to see that you are online. Be careful what you put in your status as if one of the people that you have mailed recently is a lecturer and s/he also has this facility on their mail, then your comment may be visible on their page too!

Search engines There is a wide variety of search engines: google, alta vista, cuil and yahoo are some with which you may be familiar. These can be a great source of information but, as KEY RESEARCH AND STUDY SKILLS IN PSYCHOLOGY

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we will see in Chapters 2, 3 and 4, you should not use these to help you find information for your essays or lab reports. Anybody can put anything on the web so there will be no guarantee that the material you might find is accurate or up to date. If you do find information on a university website then this will probably be fine but you should really only use the databases that are made available to you through your university library (see Chapter 2). You will know British college or university websites from their web address, which will end with .ac.uk – American and Canadian universities have an address that ends with .edu

Social networking sites You can use your status or set up groups on social networking sites to recruit participants for your final year project (see Chapters 7 and 8) so long as you can obtain the appropriate ethics approval in your university department. However, the ease with which information is available on the web also means that you should be careful about what you put up on the internet. Your status on Facebook, Twitter or MySpace, for example, may be visible to other people in your university and to future employers. Photos that you post online may also be visible to any of your lecturers, tutors or classmates, so do keep this in mind. Do not post material that you would not want them to know. Just last year, for example, there was a publicised case of a young woman who was fired from her job after posting and updating her status on one of the social networking sites saying that her job was boring. I have seen students posting derogatory remarks on these websites about their university department or people in it and this really does not look well if you are hoping to get a good reference from that department and its staff. It also looks bad if you post pictures or comments about drunken or antisocial behaviour. Don’t forget that your lecturers, tutors or potential employers use these sites too.

Blogs Weblogs, known as blogs for short, are a great way to gain experience of setting up and maintaining your own website, without having to worry about learning html code. However, you should be aware that the contents of your blog will be picked up by the main search engines once the blog has been up and running for a while. So be careful about what you post in your blog or in anyone else’s blog. If you have a blog that gains a wide readership then you can use it to help you to recruit participants for your final year project, again so long as you can obtain the appropriate ethics approval in your university department.

Improving your typing skills In this day and age there is a presumption that everybody knows how to type. If you have recently come through the school system or if you have been working in an environment where daily computer use is a requirement then you probably can

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type quite well. However, you may never have had the chance to learn to type if you are a mature student who has either been a stay-at-home parent or who has spent many years working in jobs that did not require computer use. You might find it beneficial to take typing classes but the quickest and cheapest way to learn how to type, or to improve your keyboard skills, is to do it yourself. Everyone differs in what they find helpful; I was bored in typing classes where an instructor marched over and back at the top of the room intoning ‘a s d f ; l k j’ over and over. What I found to be the quickest and most fun way to learn to type was to type up articles in the newspaper or from a magazine. Yes, it is very slow when you begin but you will speed up fairly quickly. It does not matter what fingers you use to press keys and while many will say that you can only build up speed if you use the ‘correct’ typing method (it does help), I have seen media colleagues who are extremely quick two-fingered typists. Use whatever works for you but if your typing skills could benefit from improvement then make the effort.

Using Microsoft Word If you are not already familiar with how to use Microsoft Word then the best way to learn is to experiment with the various options. Word was pretty much the same from its earliest versions to recent ones but it is very different in its 2007 form. In fact it is so different in places that it makes expert users with nearly twenty years’ experience feel as though they are novices. If you have any version of Word that predates the 2007 edition then do not be in a rush to upgrade unless you are prepared to take the time necessary to relearn how to do a lot of quite basic things. Teaching you how to use the various computer packages is beyond the scope of this book. However, what I will show you is some tips on how you can do various things in Word that either cause problems or you might not have used before. I will also show you a list of the keyboard shortcuts for common functions. These are a great tool as they will save you having to click through the various menus and layers to find what you want; they will bring you straight there and instantly execute the command that would have taken several mouse clicks.

Opening a document You may think that this is as basic as it gets but there are three times when just doubleclicking on the name of the file that you want to open does not work, presuming that it is a Word document or another type of text file that Word can read. I have seen students panic when this has happened, particularly if they are suddenly being told that their thesis file cannot be found. –

Too modern: If the file has been saved using Word 2007 and it is in that format rather than in ‘compatible mode’ then you cannot open it in any previous version of Word. This is a very important fact to know as if you have an older version of the software and someone is sending you a file then you must tell them to save it in your format. To save a Word document in a different format choose ‘save as’ and select the type, e.g. Word 97-2003 document.


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Just won’t open: In various versions of Word before the 2007 version it occasionally happens that when you double-click a file to open it it just will not work. If you are sure that your file is a Word document or a file that should be readable by Word then just open Word and then try your document. This should work. Word 2007’s file cannot be found message: In Word 2007 it happens quite often that if you double-click to open a document then it will open Word and give you an error message telling you that your file cannot be found. This is a rather annoying glitch and one that creates panic in novice users. Just try opening it after Word has opened and you will have no problem.

Headers and footers Sometimes students are told that they must put their name and/or student number as a header on the top of every page of their assignment. Many will know how to do this but if you have never had to do it then you may not be aware of how to set up a header and to edit it. In all versions of Word pre-2007 you must go to ‘insert’ and select the option for ‘header’ (or footer if you were told to put it on the bottom of the page; psychology does not use the footnote system). Once the box appears at the top of your page you can just start typing. However, it is likely to appear in a font and size that do not match the rest of your document so you should highlight the text and alter the font so that it matches and alter the size so that it is a little smaller than then main text. In Word 2007 you must go to ‘insert’, select ‘header’ and select ‘blank’, then proceed as before.

Page numbers You should always insert page numbers in your essays and reports, usually at the bottom of the page. In Word 2007 you select ‘insert’, ‘page number’, select ‘bottom of page’, and then select the ‘plain number’ option that places the number where you want it: on the right, the left, or in the middle. If you have a large document that is in separate chapters, or if you want to insert a very large table that will take up a page and you want to design it in a separate document, then you might not want to start on page 1 – you might want to start on page 12. Here you just need to select ‘insert’, ‘page number’, and ‘format page number’ to make your choice. In previous versions of Word you must select ‘insert’ and ‘page numbers’ and everything you might need will be in the one box. You can choose where you want the number to go, where you want it to start, and so on.

Tables In all versions of Word you can create a table by selecting ‘insert’ and ‘table’. You can use the grid to select the number of rows and columns you want, if it is a small table. Alternatively, select ‘insert table’ and choose the number of rows and columns that you want. You should remove the gridlines before printing your document as having lines around every cell of the table looks unsightly. To do this in Word 2007 you right-click on the table, select ‘borders and shading’ and select ‘none’. Inserting and removing rows and columns can be done in a similar way; right-click on the

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table and then select the appropriate option from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you will find various options for editing tables if you click anywhere in the table (just once) and look in the ‘design’ and ‘layout’ tabs that appear on the top of your screen. Removing gridlines and inserting or removing rows and columns can be done in this way in older versions of Word too, but in those you can also select ‘table’, ‘table properties’, and ‘borders and shading’ to remove the borders. Use ‘table properties’ (in any version of Word) to align the table with the left or right margin or to centre it between the page margins.

Textboxes Sometimes you may want to insert a textbox, for example as a way of making some piece of text stand out (see the ‘Think about this for a moment’ boxes throughout this book) or if you are constructing a model or diagram in Word. In Word 2007 you must select ‘insert’, ‘text box’ and, most usually, ‘simple text box’. You can start typing immediately; it will overtype what is already there. The default setting has an indentation set up so you can drag the lower triangle on the margin (as you would to alter the margins in any Word document) to remove this. To make the text of your document flow around the box (for university work usually just top and bottom rather than wrapping around it) click once in your textbox and then click on the new ‘format’ tab that appears at the top of your screen. Select ‘position’, ‘more layout options’, and ‘text wrapping’ and then click on the appropriate icon. In previous versions of Word you just click once in your textbox, select ‘edit’, and ‘textbox’, press the ‘text wrapping’ tab, and select the icon of your choice.

Dictionary You should always perform a spelling and grammar check on your work and the quickest way to do this is to press the F7 button on your computer. Before you run the check you should make sure that the language set for Word (and your document; sometimes it seems to change by itself) is either English (UK) or English (Ireland) and not English (US). Keep an eye on this while it is doing the check because, for some bizarre reason on what are thankfully rare occasions, the language setting can change mid-check! You will spot this if it suddenly wants you to change the word endings to American-English. Be smart about what the computer suggests as a change as sometimes its suggestion will be incorrect in the context of what you meant or wrote. For example, one time I was writing an article on the history of the Irish Derby (yes, nothing to do with psychology) and Microsoft Word queried ‘Maid Of Athens’. It suggested that the term ‘maid’ was gender-specific and perhaps I should consider using a more neutral term such as ‘servant’. I selected ‘ignore all’ as Maid Of Athens was the name of a horse who had won the race during the nineteenth century. If you are going to type all of your assignments on the same computer then use the ‘add to dictionary’ option while performing your spell-check. It will query the KEY RESEARCH AND STUDY SKILLS IN PSYCHOLOGY

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names of theorists or neuroanatomical terms or any terminology that you use but which has not been pre-saved into the dictionary of Microsoft Word. If you are certain that a spelling it queries is correct then add it to your dictionary so that it will not query it in future documents. All versions of Microsoft Word produce those red and green wiggly lines under words or phrases that it thinks are incorrect and while this may be very useful in many working environments, it is very irritating if you are working in an area that contains a lot of terminology that is not included within the computer’s dictionary. You can turn off these wiggly lines (select ‘options’ after you press F7 and untick the boxes for checking spelling and grammar as you type) but do not forget to check your spelling and grammar before you print your essay or report. You should also proofread your documents yourself as the computerised checks can miss a lot of errors, words that are spelled correctly but have been misused or are typos. Even better, you should ask a friend or classmate to proofread it for you. Why? You will learn about how expectations can influence perception when you study cognitive psychology, and it applies here. You wrote the document so you know what it is supposed to say. Sometimes our brain tells us what it should say rather than what it actually says and so we miss what might otherwise have been a really obvious error. If you do not have someone who is willing and able to proofread for you, then try to wait at least a few hours, if not a day or two, before rereading it yourself.

Keyboard shortcuts The first question that I ask someone if I am about to show them how to do anything on a computer is this: are you a keyboard person or a mouse person? Some people prefer to use the mouse for every command while others prefer to use the keyboard commands as often as possible. The table below shows a list of keyboard shortcuts for a variety of common commands. Most of them have been automatically set up in Word 2007 but every one of them works in older versions of Word. Most, if not all, Table 1.2 Some useful keyboard shortcut for use with Microsoft word. Many of them work with other software too! Function

Action with the text

Hold down

Press

create new document

ctrl

n

open

ctrl

o

print

ctrl

p

close

ctrl

w s

save

ctrl

save as

alt

f

quit

ctrl

q

select all

ctrl

a

font

ctrl

d

11

Then

Then

a

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Table 1.2 Function

Action with the text

Hold down

Press

bold

highlight

ctrl

b

italics

highlight

ctrl

i

Then

Then

underline

highlight

ctrl

u

subscript

highlight

ctrl

d

release ctrl button

alt b

superscript

highlight

ctrl

d

release ctrl button

alt p

select text/ highlight to perform an action

place cursor at the starting point

ctrl and shift

down arrow or right arrow

copy

ctrl

c

cut

ctrl

x

paste

ctrl

v

find

ctrl

f

go to a specific page

ctrl

g

find and replace

ctrl

h

insert page number

alt

i

undo last action

ctrl

z

insert page break

alt

i

u b

press OK

repeat last action

ctrl

y

word count (pre-2007)

alt

t

w

change line spacing

ctrl

m

release ctrl button

alt n

left flush

ctrl

l

c

select the icon that you want

right flush

ctrl

r

centre text

ctrl

e

justify text

ctrl

j

start the spelling & grammar check

F7

close a pop-up window in Word

esc

insert columns in the text

alt

i

increase font size

highlight

ctrl and shift

>

decrease font size

highlight

ctrl and shift

click ‘analyse’

-> click ‘analyse’

-> select ‘correlate’

-> select ‘compare means’

-> select ‘bivariate’

-> select ‘independent samples t-test’

-> click either ‘Pearson’ or ‘Spearman’

-> double-click on the variables you want to test (as many as you like), to make them appear in the box called ‘test variables’

-> double-click on the variables you want to test (as many as you like), to make them appear in the box called ‘variables’ -> if you have not specified the direction in which you expect the result to be, then select ‘two-tailed’ – if you have specified the direction of the expected result then select ‘one-tailed’ -> make sure that ‘flag significant correlations’ is ticked -> press OK

-> select the variable that represents the two groups you wish to compare, e.g. gender, and put it in the ‘grouping variable’ box -> click on ‘define groups’ -> if you coded this variable as 0 and 1, then put 0 and 1 in the boxes. If it was 1 and 2, then use these numbers, and so on. -> click ‘continue’ -> click OK

-> report as (r= [or rs=] ; N= ; p< )

-> report as (t= ; df= ; p< )

Paired samples t-test

Wilcoxon signed ranks test




-> select ‘non-parametric tests’

-> select ‘paired sample t-test’

-> select ‘2 related samples’

-> double-click on the variables you want to test (as many pairs as you like), to make them appear in the box called ‘paired variables’

-> double-click on the variables you want to test (as many pairs as you like), to make them appear in the box called ‘test pair(s) list’

-> click OK -> report as (t= ; df= ; p< )

-> select ‘Wilcoxon’ -> click OK -> report as (z= ; p< )

Mann–Whitney U test

Chi-square




-> select ‘descriptives’

-> select ‘2 independent samples’

-> select ‘crosstabs’

-> select ‘Mann–Whitney U’

-> double-click on the independent variables gender, age group, etc.) you want to test to (e.g. make them appear in the box called ‘row(s)’

-> double-click on the variables you want to test (as many as you like), to make them appear in the box called ‘test variables’

-> double-click on the dependent variables you want to test to make them appear in the box called ‘columns(s)’

-> select the variable that represents the two groups you wish to compare, e.g. gender, and put it in the ‘grouping variable’ box

-> click ‘statistics’

-> click on ‘define groups’

-> select ‘chi-square’ -> click ‘continue’

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Table 7.2 -> if you coded this variable as 0 and 1, then put 0 and 1 in the boxes. If it was 1 and 2, then use these numbers, and so on.

-> click OK -> report as (X2= ; df= ; p< )

-> click ‘continue’ -> click OK -> report as (z= ; p< ) One-way anova (with post hoc)

Two-way anova (between groups)



-> select ‘general linear model’


-> select ‘univariate’


-> put the IV into the box ‘fixed factor(s)’

-> put the 2 IVs into the box ‘fixed factor(s)’

-> put the DV into the box ‘dependent variable’

-> put the DV into the box ‘dependent variable’

-> click ‘post hoc’ (only if IV has more than 2 levels)

-> select ‘Tukey’

-> select ‘Tukey’ -> double-click on your IV (in ‘factors’ box) to put it into the ‘post hoc tests for’ box -> click ‘continue’ -> click ‘options’ -> select ‘homogeneity tests’ and ‘estimates of effect size’ -> click ‘continue -> click ‘OK’

-> click ‘post hoc’ -> double-click on the IV that has 3 or more levels (in ‘factors’ box) to put it into the ‘post hoc tests for’ box -> click ‘continue’ -> click ‘options’ -> select ‘homogeneity tests’ and ‘estimates of effect size’ -> click ‘continue -> click ‘OK’

-> report as (F= ; df= ; p< ) Binomial test

Kruskal–Wallis test




-> select ‘nonparametric tests’

-> select ‘binomial’

-> select ‘k independent samples’

-> fill in the box ‘test proportion’ - this must be expressed as a decimal so if your test proportion was 56.7%, then type this in as .567

-> put your DV(s) in the box ‘test variable list’

-> click ‘cut point’ and type in the target figure (e.g. the mean score)

-> Kruskal–Wallis H should already be ticked -> put your IV in the box ‘grouping variable’ -> click ‘define range’ -> if you coded that IV as 0, 1, 2 then make the range 0 to 2. If it was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 then it’s 1 to 5, and so on.

-> double-click on the variable you want to examine to put it in the ‘test variable list’ box

-> click ‘continue’

-> click ‘OK’

-> click ‘OK’

-> report as (N= ; p< )

-> report as (X2= ; df= ; p< ) -> perform Mann–Whitney as post hoc test

One-way anova (simple)

Three-way anova (between groups)






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Table 7.2 -> select ‘one-way anova’


-> double-click on the variables you want to test (as many as you like), to make them appear in the box called ‘dependent list’ (DVs)

-> put the 3 IVs into the box ‘fixed factor(s)’

-> select the variable that represents the two groups you wish to compare, e.g. gender, and put it in the ‘factor’ box -> click OK -> report as (F= ; df= ; p< )

-> put the DV into the box ‘dependent variable’ -> click ‘post hoc’ -> select ‘Tukey’ -> double-click on any IVs that have 3 or more levels (in ‘factors’ box) to put it into the ‘post hoc tests for’ box -> click ‘continue’ -> click ‘options’ -> select ‘homogeneity tests’ and ‘estimates of effect size’

Friedman test

Cochran’s Q test



-> select ‘nonparametric test’

-> select ‘nonparametric test’

-> select ‘k related samples’

-> select ‘k related samples’

-> select ‘Friedman’

-> select ‘Cochran’s Q’

-> put the variables (ordinal only!) you want to test in the ‘test variables’ box

-> put the variables you want to test in the ‘test variables’ box

-> click ‘exact’ and select ‘exact’

-> click ‘exact’ and select ‘exact’



-> click ‘OK’

-> click ‘OK’ 2

-> report as (X = ; df= ; p< )

-> report as (Q= ; df= ; p< )

Factor analysis (one example) -> click ‘analyse’ -> select ‘data reduction’ -> select ‘factor’ -> transfer your target variables into the box ‘Variables’ -> click ‘rotation’ and select ‘varimax’ -> click ‘continue’ -> click ‘options’ -> select ‘suppress absolute values less than’ and put .3 in the box -> click ‘continue’ -> click ‘OK’

necessary to learn how to master it? Of course, before you even get to the data analysis stage you have to collect it. This may mean that you will have to organise focus groups, or source free-to-use or inexpensive established qualitative questionnaires (that you are allowed to access; remember that not all psychometric instruments are available to trainees), or that you will have to design and field-test your own questionnaires. Difficult as it may be to design a good quantitative questionnaire,

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it can be even more difficult to design a really good qualitative one and the process involved can be quite lengthy. I am not trying to dissuade you from using qualitative methods; I think that they can produce data that are much better at capturing the human experience than analysing questionnaires or mouse-clicks or other quantitative things will ever do. But it is only fair to you to make it absolutely clear that this is most definitely not the easy option. This section is not going to give you a tutorial on qualitative methods as that would take a book in itself, but it will give you an outline of some of the issues that you need to consider before embarking on this path and it will also introduce you to some of the approaches and terminology that you will encounter in your lectures.

Interviews The process of interviews is a very popular method of obtaining qualitative data. If you are thinking of using interviews for your project then you need to give this some careful thought. How are you going to structure them? Will they be structured, semi-structured, or open? Are you going to have a series of questions that require only a quick answer and/or are designed to elicit particular responses or are you going to have more open questions that allow your participants to talk at some length about the points that you raise with them? How much time will you allow for each interview? Where will you conduct these? Will you be able to book a room in your department or elsewhere in college for the duration of the interviews? Will you have to pay for this? Will you be able to recruit sufficient numbers of participants to obtain the information that you seek? How many will you need? (Remember that you would have fewer participants than in a quantitative study.) Will you have the time necessary to set up and conduct these interviews while keeping up to date with the rest of your work and your life outside of college (e.g. part-time job, family commitments)? Will you be able to remain focused, stay in control, and not let yourself get distracted if the interviewee goes off topic? Don’t forget that you must type up transcripts of the interviews so that you can perform your analysis and that it can take a lot of time to do this typing. If you have suitable digital recording equipment and access to software that can process it and produce transcripts for you then this will save you time, but many students will not have these facilities. You may have to buy the equipment and software yourself and you may have to pay your participants for their time and travel costs. Interviews are a great way to obtain qualitative data but they can be time consuming and expensive.

Focus groups A single session with a focus group can provide you with as much data as may have been generated by a series of one-on-one interviews and this makes them an inexpensive and time-saving approach. Ideally the moderator of the group (you), will start off the discussion with something (relevant) that is likely to get people talking. The moderator should also be well-trained in how to manage the session so as to steer the discussion in the desired direction, to reduce the chance of one or two KEY RESEARCH AND STUDY SKILLS IN PSYCHOLOGY

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dominant individuals steering it somewhere else and to be able to make the most of the data that you collect. Group members (usually around six to eight in total) can help to generate ideas, memories, or the confidence to speak up in other members and this can result in more detail being provided than those same individuals may have recounted in separate interviews. If you have not been trained on how to manage focus groups and how to analyse the transcripts from them then you should probably avoid this approach for your final year project.

Case studies It would be unusual for a final year undergraduate to be allowed to produce a case study for their final year project but it is a popular qualitative research approach. As its name suggests, this is where you take a single case, a single person, and perform a detailed analysis of their situation or circumstances. It is usually done over a matter of weeks, months, or even years and it is a method that postgraduate students in counselling and clinical psychology would have to apply from time to time (clinical case reports). The timeframe available for the final year project may not be sufficient and it is unlikely that you would be able to gain access to any clinical or vulnerable groups.

Discourse analysis This is a broad term rather than the name of a specific method. Put simply, it is any of a number of approaches that examine different aspects of communication, including writing, talking, and conversation and this does it by breaking down these events into components such as speech acts, turn taking, grammar, use of rhetoric, sentence structures, sequences, etc. It is interested in natural use language. Discourse analysis is used in a variety of areas within the social sciences so it is not a technique that applies exclusively to psychology. You may receive some training in this area as part of your classes on research methods, though some psychology departments may discuss it in class without arranging any hands-on experience of its application. Therefore this is something that you would only consider for your final year project if you had already done one or more projects in which you had to use this approach.

Thematic analysis Broadly speaking, this is a method whereby you take your data, code these, and divide them into groups that have a similar meaning or related concepts or categories. These emerge from the data and so the researcher does not have any preconceived notions or categories in mind before they begin.

Structured methods These are very similar to thematic analysis but with the important difference that you do have preconceived concepts, themes, and coding schemes. So rather than

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looking for themes to emerge from the data you are imposing themes and structures onto your data. Sometimes some of this qualitative data will be transformed into numeric form, in other words into quantitative form, and this part will be analysed using statistics.

Grounded theory This approach is one that was developed in sociology but unless you are trained in how to use it then you should not attempt it for your final year project as you will just not have the time to learn and master it. Unlike many approaches that have a particular theory in mind before they begin grounded theory aims to generate a theory, not to support or refute or to develop an already existing one. You will often find it included in courses on qualitative research methods but the Grounded Theory Institute (see www.groundedtheory.com) states that the approach is not a qualitative method, that it is ‘a general method … the systematic generation of theory from systematic research. It is a set of rigorous procedures leading to the emergence of conceptual categories’. In other words, you start without any preconceptions or theories and you develop them only on the basis of your findings.

Summary Designing a study may initially sound like an easy task but it should be clear from reading this chapter that there are many things that you need to consider. The research question that you want to ask or the hypothesis that you want to test can dictate whether or not you use a quantitative or qualitative approach. It can also dictate the types of tests, materials, measures or techniques that you will need to use, the number of participants that you will have to recruit, and the amount of time that you will require to manage everything. The details of all of these methods will be covered in detail in your statistics and research design classes and relevant books on these topics that will be recommended to you by your lecturers, which is why they have only been mentioned in passing here. This is an in-a-nutshell guide to research in psychology, not a how-to. But you should have an idea of what may be involved, from a practical point of view, if you decide to use any of these methods in your final year project. Research may sound and feel daunting when you are starting out, but it is a lot easier than it may seem and it can be also a lot of fun. So what should you aim for in the design of your independent research project in your final year? Keep it simple. And I mean simple, not basic. Giving people a single questionnaire to complete and performing a few correlations and Mann–Whitneys will probably not be enough to score really well. You may be expected to have two or three questionnaires and to analyse them independently and against each other. If your psychology department is heavily involved in qualitative research then you may receive a lot of training in this area and do your project accordingly. But whatever approach you are going to take, keep in simple. Do not try to design some large


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and complex project just for the sake of it. The project is just an exercise to see if you are capable of designing, carrying out, and writing up an independent piece of research. It is not about coming up with something that will change the world; leave that until your postdoctoral research. Keep in mind the points and issues raised here, pay close attention to what your supervisor tells you, and I would also recommend that you study Jennifer Evans’s excellent book Your Psychology Project: The Essential Guide For Success (2007). You should work with Andy Field’s Discovering Statistics Using SPSS (2009) for an outstanding and comprehensive guide to anything you might ever want to know about statistics in SPSS. For excellent guides to the intricacies of qualitative research I would recommend David Silverman’s Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice (2004) and also Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research Methods(2008), which is edited by Jonathon Smith. Don’t worry and don’t panic; statistics and research methods are not the monsters that they seem at first and in time you may even come to enjoy them.

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8

WRITING REPORTS

Aims This chapter focuses on lab reports, something that you will have to produce in each year of your degree. The number and length of these reports will depend on the classes that you are taking but by the end of this chapter you should know: • • •

the structure and layout of a lab report how to write the various sections of a lab report how to present your report.

What is expected at university? ‘The matter looked dreary reading enough, with illustrative diagrams and repulsive tables of figures …’ (Conrad, 1994 [1902], p. 54). This quotation, which comes from the novel Heart Of Darkness, makes me smile as it almost sounds like the character is talking about some of the lab reports that I produced as an undergraduate or that I have read since. Sometimes they can be rather dull and repetitive with too many diagrams and tables of numbers, but if your early attempts are like that then do not worry as with practice you will be able to write an interesting and engaging report and you will know what is appropriate for representation in a table or graph and what is not needed. You will have to write quite a few lab reports during the course of your degree. Usually these will be fairly short and based on tests or experiments carried out during class time. Some will be longer and some may require that you work in a group and present a team report. In your final year you are likely to be asked to produce a larger individual research report, which is generally known as the Final Year Project (FYP), dissertation, or the undergraduate thesis. For the purposes of this chapter the major research project that you undertake in your final undergraduate year will be referred to as the FYP. There is a specific format in which reports must be presented and it is very important that you follow the structure exactly. If your lecturer or tutor wants you to present any section in a different way then follow their guidelines so that you do not lose marks. However, remember that just because one lecturer or tutor decides to deviate from the regular format does not mean that you should do so in all

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of your classes and for different lecturers or tutors; that could cost you marks. Following the format is an easy way to gain marks for a report and it is usual that you can earn much higher marks for it than you will for an essay. This is because there is normally a set number of marks for each part or each section of the report and so by including the correct information in the correct places you can almost pass some report assignments on this basis alone. However, being careless in applying the correct format to a report, which is remarkably common in students even in their final year, or trying to modify it to suit your own personal preferences is a silly way to throw away marks. If you can gain enough marks from doing it correctly that you can almost pass on that alone, just think how many marks you are throwing away if you do not follow the standard format!

Structure of a report The function of a report or thesis is to explain what research was conducted, why it was done, exactly how it was done, what the results were, and what the implications of these results are when placed against previously published literature. Report writing is an important skill for undergraduate work and especially for postgraduate level and beyond. It encompasses the skills used in essay writing along with appropriate use of data analysis and the method of presentation follows strict guidelines; specific information must be presented within specified sections of the report. The main sections of any undergraduate report or FYP are: – – – – – – – – –

title contents page abstract introduction methods and procedure results discussion references appendices.

An explanation of what goes into each of those sections is provided below. If you are required to include a signed declaration that the work is your own (usually only in your FYP), then you must include this on the page before the contents section. Have a look at any scientific journal article and you will notice that it is laid out in these sections with the obvious exception of a contents page. Some journals combine results and discussion into a single section but you should keep them separate for your lab reports, undergraduate, master’s or doctoral theses. Look closely at what material is included in what sections. Though the style requirements of some journals place some information in different sections than in a formal report, they are all basically the same. An example would be that in some journals the editors insist that no statistical results be included in the abstract. This exception is rare and does not apply to report writing i.e. statistical results must be reported in the abstract. There is a sample report, with comments, provided in the appendices.

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The title The first section of the report is the title and this is something that is often overlooked. All too often we will write a report and then just slap on a title without actually thinking about what the title is conveying. Or perhaps you would just copy and paste the name of the assignment on to the front of your report; that will not be adequate either. The title must go on a separate page (attached of course) to the rest of the report and it is usually on that page that you will include your name and student number and any other information that you have been told to give, for example, the name of the class and/or lecturer. Sometimes you will be told not to put any pictures or illustrations on the front cover, but if there’s no policy on this in your university department then it is probably fine to include something so long as it is relevant and tasteful. But do not go to the expense of trying produce a fullcolour report as you will not gain any extra marks for that. So what should the title tell us? Ideally it should: – – – – –

not exceed 15–20 words indicate what the study was about indicate the independent variable (IV) and dependent variable (DV) identify the subjects or participants indicate some key aspect of the results.

A short, snappy title might sound cool but if it does not give the reader, who may be searching for a specific piece of information, an idea of what is contained in the report then s/he is likely to bypass it in favour of another document. Posters, as we will see in Chapter 9, are different; catchy titles can draw readers in and they can be memorable. As an undergraduate my lab group produced a cognition poster with the title ‘New Age Men Found on Trinity Campus!’. It got lots of attention but, many years later, even I cannot remember what it was about. It is a fun title so let’s look further at it. Think about this for a moment. What is wrong with that title and why would you never put one like this on your lab report?

Firstly, what was the study about? I’ve said that it was for cognition report that was presented as a poster but can you even tell that from the headline? It sounds as though it could have been an anthropology study or a sociology project or even a police report! Maybe it was for a palaeontology class and some fossilised remains of a humanoid species called ‘New Age Man’ were dug up on the university grounds. Now that would have been really cool but sadly that’s not what the study was about. The title sounds more like a newspaper or magazine headline that is designed to draw you in rather than the title of an academic lab report. Always remember, you are studying psychology and not training to be a newspaper sub-editor! So how do we write a title that will tell the reader what the report is about? There are certain pieces of information that should be reflected in a title and there KEY RESEARCH AND STUDY SKILLS IN PSYCHOLOGY

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are some superfluous words and phrases that should be left out. As it is a report and therefore obviously the result of a piece of research, do not make any mention of ‘a study to show that’ or ‘research into whether or not …’ or anything else that tells the reader that you investigated something. However, you will need to give some indication of the independent and dependent variables in the study but without using those words. What are independent and dependent variables (see Chapter 7)? These are terms you will come across in your statistics classes and there are formal definitions for them that students will often have to memorise. I have found that formal definitions can cause more confusion than understanding and so I always point out to students that the simplest way to remember what these two types of variables are is as follows: Independent variables are the items that you are using to Investigate something (e.g. age, gender, occupational status, height, etc.) whereas Dependent variables are the things that you are trying to Discover (e.g. IQ scores, depression scores, anxiety scores, attitudes, reaction times, etc.).

Think about this for a moment. Does the title ‘New Age Men Found on Trinity Campus!’ tell us anything about the IVs and DVs in the study?

There is a reference to men in the title so gender may have been a variable, but does this title necessarily imply that women were also being sought? This could have been a study done entirely on male participants. The men are described as ‘New Age’ but is this necessarily a dependent variable? Maybe the study only looked for New Age Men and nothing else and so the fact that this men were ‘New Age’ was not a discovery, hence not a dependent variable. And what on earth are ‘New Age Men’ anyway?! Clearly the title is unclear. Your lab report title should also identify the subjects or participants and there is a very important distinction between those two terms. If your work deals with humans (or sentient beings from other planets, if they exist and are willing to take part in your research!) then you must refer to them as participants and never as subjects. You will find books and many journal articles that do use the term ‘subjects’ in human studies, but the policy changed some years ago and so you should not use the term. It would appear from our title that at least some of the participants were ‘New Age Men’ and that they were found on Trinity campus (is that a business park or maybe a university campus?) but it does not give us sufficient information about them. If we had said something like ‘Paddy, Mick and Joe Blogs found …’ then we would have given too much information and also broken an ethical rule in psychology; we would have named them and that is not allowed! However, if we had phrased the title something like ‘New Age attitudes found in male university students’ then we would know that the key finding in the report is about men who are attending a university and who, therefore, are probably young. Of course there is probably going to be some mature students among them so perhaps the title could have said ‘young male’ or if they were all mature students then ‘mature male’. Whether or not women were also studied will have to be found out from reading the abstract

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(see below) and the rest of the report, but this different title gives us much more information.

Think about this for a moment. If the title was ‘New Age Attitudes Found in Male University Students’ then what could we learn from it about the study?

In addition to finding out something about the IV and the DV (‘New Age’ attitudes, whatever those might be), we have learned that the study was conducted with university students and that the key finding was men were found to exhibit New Age attitudes. Of course we do not know what the context of the report was – attitudes towards what? – but though there is no mention of women we could infer something about gender from this title. Ask yourself this; what would have been the purpose of the study? Most likely it would have been to administer questionnaires that included attitude scales and that male students scored significantly higher on the trait of ‘New Age’ attitudes than did female students. It is not said directly in the title but it could be inferred from it. But even if you read the title that way it does not mean that women were definitely a part of the study. Titles are often the part of a journal article that we barely glance at but you can use them to help you learn to write better titles for your own lab reports. Have a look at journal articles and break down their titles. What was the study about? What were the IVs and DVs? Who were their participants and what were the key findings? It does not matter if you know nothing about the subject of the paper. You will remember that I said you must never use the term ‘subjects’ when referring to human participants. This term is reserved for non-human species and in those cases you will have to give the species’ Latin name in the title too. You may do some lab studies with pigeons or rats, but that will depend on the university that you are in as many do not do these learning studies any more. Here is an example of a title from an animal study: Accompanying preweaned thoroughbred foals (Equus caballus) while separated from the mare during covering reduces behavioural signs of distress exhibited.

Think about this for a moment. Can you identify the IV, DV, and the identity of the subjects in this example? What information does this title provide about the study that was conducted?

The IV here was the group into which the foal was placed and it had two levels (see Chapter 7): accompanied or left on their own in the stable. The DV is the behavioural signs of distress exhibited by the foals and the key finding was that this distress was lower in the accompanied group than in the solitary group. The subjects were very young foals (they had not yet been weaned), they were common horses, species Equus caballus, of the breed Thoroughbred. The reason that they were available for study was because their mothers had been removed for a few minutes KEY RESEARCH AND STUDY SKILLS IN PSYCHOLOGY

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(no more than an hour) to visit the stallion. The title does not indicate who it was that did the accompanying (actually it was me!), but the lingo used in the animal behaviour branch of psychology and animal science and welfare makes it clear that it was a human. And all of this information was condensed into just 19 words. The paper was published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science in 2004 and is available online through the Science Direct database, to which your university probably has a subscription – just in case you’re interested in seeing how this type of postgraduate field work was done.

Contents page When the reader turns the title page of your lab report they should see a contents page. Make sure that you lay it out neatly and clearly rather than just typing a small, squashed list at the top of the page. It should indicate the page on which each of the major sections starts and in your FYP, or in a major team research project if you are asked to produce one, it will also include a list of all the tables and figures contained within the report and the page numbers on which they can be found. This page does not have to be fancy and it does not have to be laid out in the way that Microsoft Word can do it; plain and simple will suffice – it’s only a lab report. Your contents page on a short report might look like this: Abstract

1

1.0

Introduction

2

2.0

Methods & Procedure

4

2.1 Design

4

2.2 Participants

4

2.3 Materials

4

2.4 Procedure

4

3.0

Results

6

4.0

Discussion

7

References

9

Appendix 1: Information Letter for Participants

10

Appendix 2: The Joe Blogs IQ Questionnaire

11

Appendix 3: Confirmation of Ethics Approval

12

You will notice that some of the sections have been numbered in this example. It is not essential that you do so for first-year or second-year lab reports, but when it comes to larger pieces of work such as a team project or your FYP then it is a good idea to number the sections as indicated here. In a larger report you may have numerous tables, figures (i.e. pictures or graphs), or subsections within each major section and numbering in this way makes it easier to refer the reader to a specific point. For example, the first table in your results section would be Table 3.1, indicating that it is the first table to be found in section three of the report. You may

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want to refer back to this table in your discussion, for example, so having a number that identifies its specific location is very helpful, particularly when you get to your master’s (~10,000 to 40,000 words) or doctoral thesis (~40,000 to 100,000 words).

Abstract The abstract is a self-contained and self-explanatory summary of the whole report. If you have worked in business or management you may be familiar with executive summaries; the abstract is the same idea. It should provide details of the research question, the IV and DV, details of the subjects/participants, the methods used, the statistics and any other analysis methods used, the findings, and the implications of these findings in light of the hypothesis tested, and normally all this should be in between 120 to 150 words. For larger reports, for example a master’s or doctoral thesis, the abstract will usually need to be longer but the shorter word length should be adhered to for undergraduate reports and journal articles. Although the abstract is placed at the start of the report, the best time to write it is actually after you have completed the rest of the report. After all, the abstract is a concise yet detailed summary of the whole study so it is easier to do this when you’ve written everything else. Here are two versions of the same abstract, a weak one and a better one.

Box 8.1:

Version 1 (weak abstract)

Jenni and Jenni (1976) did a study that showed that men and women carry books differently. We looked at a random selection of students and noted the way they carried their books. We put the data into a statistics package and found that the authors were right.

This example contains many of the errors that I have seen in abstracts of reports written by undergraduate students. It is clearly a book-carrying report based on a very old journal article and it tells us that the participants were students, that gender was an IV, and that how the books were carried is the DV. It also tells us that the data were analysed by computer software and that the results were consistent with what someone had said or predicted. So what is wrong with it?

Think about this for a moment. If this abstract identifies some of the key things that are supposed to be in an abstract then why is it a poor one? What is wrong with it?

The first thing that should jump out at you is that this abstract is much too short; it is only 47 words! It does tell you what was done and why, but it is so superficial KEY RESEARCH AND STUDY SKILLS IN PSYCHOLOGY

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that are no details whatsoever. What is the difference between the way in which men and women carry books, according to Jenni and Jenni (1976)? Who is ‘we’? Apart from the fact that you should never mention I, you, me, we, our, your, and similar words in your reports, this implies that the writer was not the only researcher. A ‘random selection of students’ – random has a very specific meaning and so how did this random selection take place. Was it random or was it an opportunistic sample? How did you note the way in which they carried their books? Was there a checklist or something else to be completed or did you just write down a note on how they were carrying the books. How many books? Did you look at students who were carrying a single book, or maybe two, three, five, or more? Was it large or small books? Just as the phrase ‘did a study that showed’ is a superfluous phrase (see Chapter 5), so too is ‘we put the data into a statistics package and found’. Most people will be using computer software to do their calculations and the fact that you did so tells us nothing about the findings. And neither does this abstract! The ‘authors were right’ – what authors? ‘We’ or maybe Jenni and Jenni? And what was right? Did the study just find that men and women carry their books differently? If an abstract poses more questions about the study than it answers then it is indeed a poor abstract. Now look at version 2 of this abstract. Can you see why this is so much better than the first version?

Box 8.2:

Version 2 (better abstract)

To test the theory, put forward by Jenni and Jenni (1976), that there is a gender difference in the way in which males and females carry books, an observation study was carried out by a team of first-year undergraduate psychology students in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Opportunistic sampling was employed and 209 students (m=104; f=105) were observed. The carrying style that each used, organised into the six different methods (split into two main types), as defined by Jenni and Jenni, was noted by ticking the corresponding icon on a printed checklist. More females than males use the book-carrying methods designated as Type A, that is with the short edges of the book resting on the hip or in front of the body ( X2 = 55.46; p < .0001), which supported the earlier published findings.

Hopefully you can clearly see the differences between this version of the abstract and the previous version. This abstract has 130 words, which is a suitable length. It identifies what Jenni and Jenni (1976) found to be different in how men and women carry books, who conducted this newer study, where and how they did it, and what was found. A chi-square test was performed to see if there was a statistically significant difference in the proportions of men and women who carried their books in the different styles; there was on Type A, with more women than men using this method. A value for degrees of freedom should have been included in the chi-square result but that’s a minor omission.

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Introduction The introduction is rather like an essay (see Chapter 4). It will give the relevant background information to the topic under investigation, with relevant being a key word. Don’t write a lengthy essay about the history of eating disorders and how they affect people throughout their lives if the research question was the prevalence of eating disorders in pre-teens. The topic will need to be addressed but only briefly and your introduction should start out fairly broad but gradually narrow its focus. As with an essay, all material must be fully and properly referenced. Whereas an essay closes with the conclusions drawn on the basis of the evidence provided, a report’s introduction closes with a formal statement of the hypothesis or the research question being tested, for example: the hypothesis was that men would show a more favourable attitude than would women towards the television cartoon series Beavis & Butthead. You do not, however, give any description of how you actually went about conducting the research; that comes later. The following example is an introduction section from a freshman child psychology lab report that looked at the messages of violence and gender stereotyping portrayed in the very popular television cartoon series The Simpsons, which is viewed by children and adults alike. The effect of television viewing on children has long been a hotly-debated topic with numerous studies showing that children copy, to varying extents, what they see on screen, whether that be the imitation of a pop idol or the violence portrayed in action films, documentaries or cartoons (for example, Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1961, 1963). Indeed, it has been estimated that by age 16 the average child will have witnessed more than 13,000 killings on television (Liebert & Schwartzberg, 1977). In one study a ten-year follow-up of more than 200 children found that the amount of violent television watched at age nine was the best single predictor of juvenile delinquency offences related to aggression at age 19 (Leftkowitz, et al., 1972). Huesmann and Eron (1986) found, however, that there was a bi-directional effect. Not only did children who watched more aggressive television become more aggressive over time, but also more aggressive children watched increasing amounts of violent television over time. It is important to remember, however, that while viewing of television aggression can increase people’s tendency to be aggressive, both immediately and at some time in the future, this link is not inevitable (Deaux, Dane & Wrightsman, 1993, p. 273). Children learn much by watching and observing and, as Kendall and Hammen (1995, p. 482) point out, ‘one of the three levels on which observational learning takes place is violence on television, in film and in music lyrics’. The same is true, in many cases, of gender roles and gender stereotyping. One way in which the learning of stereotyped perceptions and behaviour might occur is through differential imitation of same-sex models (Manstead & McCulloch, 1981). The current ‘Barbie Doll’ hit song, for example, does not exactly portray women or girls in a favourable light, leaning more towards the blond bimbo stereotype instead. And one only has to look around them to see young girls dressing and acting like, say, the Spice Girls. Before studies of the effects of TV watching can be evaluated properly, it is important to adopt a valid view of the person who is watching. ‘To assume that television can impact upon a passively receptive child audience with messages about sex stereotyping (or indeed anything else which may influence), thus moulding innocent young viewers’ conceptions of gender, is largely accepted as an over simplistic picture of what really goes on’ (Gross, 1996, p. 588). Viewers exhibit a


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degree of activity in selecting what to watch, what to pay attention to and what to remember in a selective fashion to particular characters and events and their perceptions, memories and understanding of what they have seen may often be mediated by dispositions they bring with them to the viewing situation (Gunther & McAleer, 1990). Even so, children do tend to imitate what they see, for varying reasons. Kostelnick, Whiren and Stein (1988) described why children find superhero play, for example, so attractive. Superhero characters have been endowed with powers and qualities that embody the best of human nature. Among their characteristics are that they possess powers that children wish they had, nobody tells them what to do, they can overcome any obstacles, they are popular and they rarely make mistakes. This is all very appealing to a child, particularly one who is feeling unloved or vulnerable. While few would choose to model themselves after Homer Simpson, from The Simpsons, there are doubtless many young boys and girls who would choose to model themselves after his children Bart and Lisa Simpson. This study examined a single episode of the very popular television cartoon show The Simpsons, identifying the degree of violent and gender stereotyped behaviour contained within it.

You will, no doubt, realise from the dates of the citations and cultural references that this introduction was written in the final decade of the twentieth century. Even for that date, however, some of the sources that it cites are a little old and ideally the writer should have used more recent material. Many freshman lab reports will include only a small number of references, but you should try to get several of these for each point that you are discussing rather than just basing the point around a single article or statement from a textbook. The more literature that you consult and cite the stronger you will be able to make your introduction and discussion sections. You will notice that this sample introduction section introduces the two main aspects of the report by describing some research conducted on them and ends the piece by stating the purpose of the study. A critical evaluation of the material presented would have been good but there was a maximum word count placed on the assignment, which would have added to the difficulty for an inexperienced freshman student in performing the evaluation.

Methods and procedure This section should contain enough detail so that someone else could follow its ‘instructions’ and replicate your study. Again, there is a specific way in which this should be done – this section is broken up into: – – – –

Design Participants Materials Procedure.

Design

This subsection will be very short, usually just a single paragraph, and should give details of the design used. But this is not where you tell the reader about the steps that you undertook to conduct the project; that comes later. It could be a questionnaire

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study, an observation study, maybe an experimental situation, or perhaps you were replicating another study but with a twist (different age group, different culture, etc.). There is other information that you should include here but do pay attention to what your lecturer or tutor says about this section; some will differ in what they want to see appearing in this section. You will have to indicate the independent and dependent variables. For the IV you will also have to state the levels at which it was measured. That might sound like something complicated but all it means is the way in which your IV could be broken down. For example, if gender was an IV in your study then the levels of this IV were almost certainly female and male. If your study was an observation study with a species of animal that may have some neutered individuals among the group (e.g. cats, dogs, horses) then you may have a third gender, but it is highly unlikely that you will encounter this any earlier than your FYP or postgraduate level.

Think about this for a moment. What other independent variables might you have and what levels might they contain?

Many IVs will have levels that you have chosen, for example age and socioeconomic status. There are no obvious levels to these as it is up to you to decide on the categories (levels) that will be included. For age you might decide to break down your IV into 20–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, and so on, but if your study is being conducted among undergraduates then you will find many more students who are aged 18–21 than you will find mature students. If this was the case then it is unlikely that you would use age as an IV because there is unlikely to be much difference between people who are 18, 19, 20 and 21. Even if you do not use age as an IV in your study you will usually ask for the participants’ age anyway or ask them to indicate their age from the different ranges shown above. This is so that you can indicate the age range of your participants in the next subsection: participants. Sometimes students try to include as many potential IVs that they can think of but don’t do this for a lab report. If you include an IV it must be relevant to the research question or hypothesis and then you must use it for your analysis. You don’t ask participants to give you personal information just for fun. So if you ask them to indicate their educational level then you must have a good reason for doing so and you must use the information in your report. In an undergraduate lab report it is likely that you will have an insufficient number of participants to produce the amount of data that you would need for analysing multi-layered IVs. Whether or not you used a control group or made any attempt to control for confounding variables is another piece of information that you must include under design. You will also have to indicate something relevant to the analysis of the results: whether the study used repeated measures (within groups), independent groups (between groups), etc. So what does all this mean? This will be covered in your classes on statistics and research design and there are formal definitions that you will probably have to memorise, however this is what KEY RESEARCH AND STUDY SKILLS IN PSYCHOLOGY

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they mean in simpler terms. If you give everyone the same questionnaire but your intention is to compare how men and women answer it, then you will be analysing your DV (their answers) by comparing the scores of the two genders (levels of the IV). Men and women, therefore, become two groups but both did the same test and so you are going to compare these two groups separately, independently. This would be a questionnaire study utilising an independent groups (or between groups) design. Maybe it was not the gender of the respondents that interested you; maybe you wanted to know if performance on the test would be better or worse if they did the test and then did something else (came back a week later, or did some sort of distracter task that you give them or maybe, at more senior levels, after something that they were given to eat or drink) before retaking the original test. You will be comparing their before and after scores and this is an example of a study that used a repeated measured or within groups design. If your study is experimental in design and you are trying to determine whether or not something is having a significant effect on, say, performance or test scores, then you will need a control group. If you just perform your experiment on a single group then how do you know that it was that something you added or manipulated that was affecting their results? You don’t; there could be other explanations. However, if you have a second group that did the same test but without the extra element that you included in the experimental situation then you can compare the results of the two groups. If the experimental group scored significantly differently from the control group then it may have been the extra thing that you included in their test that was producing the difference. Confounding variables are things that are, or may be, having an influence on your results but that you could not have foreseen or prevented. For example, you might be giving participants some musical or soundbased test where they have to discriminate between the different notes or sounds but did you rule out participants who have tinnitus (ringing in the ears), auditory impairments or are tone deaf, and did you make sure that the room in which the study was being conducted was quiet, with no sounds of radios or other noise that might impair performance on the test? When writing your design paragraph do not mention stuff that is not relevant to your study. For example, if it was an observational study you were highly unlikely to need a control group so why mention it? The design section might look something like this: This was a questionnaire study that used a between groups design comparing the attitudes of men and women, smokers and non-smokers, towards smoking in public places.

Participants

As we saw earlier, in studies involving humans you must use the term ‘participants’. If those with whom the research was conducted were non-humans then the term to use is ‘subjects’. This has been the rule for only the past decade or so, hence you may see human participants referred to as subjects in older journal articles or textbooks.

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In this section you must note how many participants you had (for example, N = 30) and you must show the number of these that were male and those that were female (for example, N = 30; m = 14; f = 16). You should also give the age range and mean age of them. You need to state who your participants were (as a group, never by naming them or by giving information that might enable them to be identified) and how they were recruited. If, for example, you were looking at attitudes towards the legalisation of cannabis and your participants came from only first year undergrads, then what you would have found would have been the attitudes of a selection of first year undergrads on the matter. Therefore, your results may have little or no significance beyond these. It is also important to state any incentives offered to your participants as these could have an effect on the type of person your study attracted, or on their motivation to participate honestly. Many studies reported in introductory university text books were conducted with American university students participating for course credits. Therefore they represent, largely, middle- and upper-class Americans under the age of 22 who had to participate in order to pass their course. How representative of the general population are this group or, indeed, any group tested?

Materials

Here you need to identify the materials and apparatus used in your study. For example, you may have merely used pen and paper and a stopwatch recording to the nearest 1/100th of a second. Or you may have used a specific piece of laboratory equipment, in which case you would have to give the make and model. While it is often useful to name the statistics package you used to analyse your data (some packages do things slightly differently from others), it is not necessary to name the package you used to type up the report or to say that you used a PC or Macintosh to do so or that your computer was a Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Acer, etc. That sort of information is irrelevant as it had absolutely no bearing on the study you conducted. It is also irrelevant what colour pens you gave your participants (unless that colour is somehow important in the study) or the size of the envelopes into which you put questionnaires or how much money you had to pay in postage, printing, or photocopying. If you created a piece of equipment or designed a questionnaire for use in your study, then you need to give specific details of how and why this was done. If you used someone else’s questionnaire then you need to talk briefly about it; what is it for, who designed it, what does it measure, what are the factors contained within it, how is it scored? A blank copy of each type of questionnaire or data collection sheet used should be included as an appendix and your materials section of the report should refer the reader to that specific appendix (e.g. see Appendix 1). These appendices must be numbered in the order in which they were mentioned in your report.

Procedure

This is where you describe exactly how you conducted the study itself. You should include sufficient detail so that someone else trying to replicate your work could KEY RESEARCH AND STUDY SKILLS IN PSYCHOLOGY

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follow exactly what you did. If stimuli were presented, what were they? If participants had to look at words on a computer screen, what colour were they? What size and type of font? How far did the participants sit from the screen? For how long was the stimulus on the screen? How bright was the screen? What sort of lighting, ventilation, and temperature did the room have? How many trials were presented? What method of response did the participants have to make? How did you ensure that the ethical guidelines for psychological research were followed? Again, if any of these items were not directly relevant to the study then do not mention them. You need to state the specific instructions given to the participants before, during, and after the experiment. If these are lengthy then place them in an appendix and refer the reader to that specific appendix, after giving some examples in the procedure section of the type of instruction given. What was the tester doing during the study? Were you present in the room or elsewhere? Were there several people doing the test at the same time or just one? What did they do? Did they raise any concerns? This last point is important as it could indicate a potential confounding variable. Often experimenters will fail to take into consideration any discomfort or difficulty that the testing procedure or environment may have posed to individual participants. For example, a dyslexic person may have had difficulty doing a timed reading task, or a photosensitive individual may have not been able to look at a bright computer screen or work under fluorescent lights, or someone with a hearing difficulty may not have been able to hear the instructions unless you had read them slowly, and so on. You want to produce a clear and coherent set of instructions, in a regular paragraph format (not bullet points), so that anybody else could pick up your report, follow the steps that you took, and conduct the same study in the same way. Again, leave out any irrelevant information; you should only include those details that are important for the study. I have read lab reports in which students have given me the dimensions of the envelopes in which they posted out questionnaires, the cost of the stamps, the types of stamps that they bought (e.g. so many 40p stamps and so many 5p stamps, etc.) or even the bus that they took to get to university that day and how long the journey took! If I wanted to replicate a study I would not need to know any of this.

Results It may seem like stating the obvious but the results section is where you describe your results. But beware you describe your results you do not interpret them. This section is purely about stating facts. Some common mistakes that students often make with the results section of their reports are: –

– –

they think that this must be a long section (because statistics are made out to be so important and this is the scary section that they’ve been dreading) and so they fill it up by trying to explain their results or by using lots of unnecessary words and phrases they produce graphs or tables and just leave it at that or throw in graphs and tables and say something like ‘Table 1 shows the results of the study’ they paste in graphs and tables for everything!

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You may have thought that the most common error would be getting the statistics wrong but, in my experience, that rarely happens. If you are just learning statistics then the handouts and notes from your lab class will often tell you which statistics you have to perform in your report. This is because the function of the report may be to give you some practice of using that particular test. You were probably taught the mathematics behind the test – many academics think this is important and that you will better understand what you are doing (it was all Greek to me but computerised statistics are no problem at all) – but unless you are going to go on to some postdoctoral research area in which an intimate knowledge of the math behind the statistics is required (usually just to read the results sections of some complicated papers, though many academic psychologists will contact their university’s Statistics Department if they need help with a complex analysis) then what is truly important is being able to do the tests on a computer. You need to know what tests to do and when, how to perform them on the computer, and how to interpret and report the results – and all of that is easy (see Chapter 7). You may also think that the results section of a report should be full of numbers. Sometimes that is somewhat true but in most undergraduate lab reports this section will be all words with just a few numbers. This means that you should use words – text – to state what you found. You start with the descriptive statistics (how many participants, age and gender breakdown, frequencies), identify the significance level that you took (e.g. 1% level or 5% level; i.e. p

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