Important stuff when writing psychology reports

8/9/2019 Important stuff when writing psychology reports

1/3

Comments on the reports

Here are some comments on the reports. Hopefully they help. If

you disagree with your mark, please read through the markingguideline that was in the slides the week of the tragedy of thecommons lab. It seemed people lost many marks by not stickingto it closely.

Overall

I was happy with the overall standard of the reports

Ensure you know what is meant to go in what section of a lab report

READ the QUESTION!! READ THE GUIDE for how to answer questions!!! It was in the

powerpoint for this lab. It tells you what to do to get the marks. Whynot make use of it?

Know the point of the experiment

WRITE CLEARLY. Make it easy to understand.

Write in a logical manner. It needs to make sense. Use good reasoningand explain things in a simple manner.

Be careful with overgeneralisations like Everyone is just greedy andwants more for themselves. Is everyone really like this?

Watch out for throwing around fancy terms if you arguement doesntmake sense. Make it clear first, fancy second. Fancy without clarity or

logic is not nice to read.

Introduction

You have to understand the concept of the tragedy of the commonsto answer the question

The description notes how the individual (person/group/company etc)taking too much impacts on the whole, and the example should takethis format and illustrate it clearly.

o Basically you are trying to state a theory clearly, and give an

example of the theory in action Needed to reference your example to show you had researched it Dont write too much: i.e. stay on topic or risk losing marks due to

revealing you dont know the details well Be careful not to overstate things. Things are not often completely

black and white. And also dont overstate the outcome of the study.i.e. that the experiment will help prevent the tragedy of the commons.Qualify your statements.

o Dont sayEveryone does this etco Or No-one even cares really? How can you be sure of that

statement?

1


2/3

If stating aims of the study, make sure you are very clear on what theyare

Well done to those who attempted to make the introduction sound likethe start of an integrated article

Clarity is key - Do not try and make the marker work too hard to find

your meaning. Be more clear as to the individual/groups gaining, and who loses out Get clear on the theory before you write, then make it clear what the

commons are, the groups involved, who stands to gain and who standsto lose etc. Sometimes there was not enough detail.

Methods

Describing participants

Needed to give description of the likert scale measures. Use the words condition one and two Needed to be sections as laid out in the guide, and in the lab we had on

writing a lab report

USE sub-headings

Could someone repeat the experiment based on your method section?

Say males and females, not boys and girls Dont mention demographics like age and cultural spread if we did not

gather this data, other than We did not gather data on ....... So many people only did not mention both clip numbers - individual

AND group being recorded Write in prose, not bullet points

Make clear the difference in condition one and two

Get details correct Number of participants, observers etc

Try to keep write ups impersonal (me, I etc)

Method section is objective data not aspects from the discussion

Results

Very good idea to lay it out clearly under each hypothesis Restate hypothesis and if it was supported or not state it clearly

In regard to P values, P can not equal 0. Why is this? Because P is anestimated probability. We never say that there is no probability ofsomething occuring. Therefore when our p-value says .000, the way wewrite it is


3/3

E.G. If the governments of the world can talk to each other about theproblems then this will help save the commons.

You had to read and reference the two extra articles.

You needed to relate theory to findings USE PARAGRAPHS!!! Many students crammed the whole two

pages full of text. Paragraphs help your argument flow andmake sense, and makes it a lot easier for the marker.

Further research

A research question asks a broad question. Then we come up with amethod to answer that question. It is not a question like What wouldhappen if we split the men up from the women?. This is not a researchquestion. You need say why it is important to do this study. State the

issue, and then how to research the issue.

References

Hardly anyone did this well. Please get help with referencing. Get end

note from the IT people in Kate Edgar, and use it . Also see theuniversity libraries information on referencing on their web page.

Hope that helps

See you next week, and and good luck everything

Daniel

3

Documents

Important stuff when writing psychology reports