Psychological Research Methods (Conversion) 1: 2000-Word Research Report

Due date/time: Thursday 5th  December 2024 at 12noon.

Marks: This report will be marked on University’s 21-point marking scale (i.e., you’ll be awarded a mark ‘out of 20’) . It is worth 60% of your final grade for your unit.

Overview: For  this  assessment you  will  develop, run  and  write-up  a   conceptual  replication  of experiment 3 from Rosenbaumetal. (2017) . This document provides a summary of our expectations for this assessment.

Formatting requirements: The body of your report should be no longer than 2000 words. These 2000 words do not include the content of your title  page, abstract (which should be  no longer than 150 words), keywords, end-text reference list, tables or figures  (or the titles/captions/notes associated with these) . The report should carefully follow the guidelines for reporting empirical work provided  by the APAin the 7th  edition of the publication manual (particularly chapters 2 and 3) and quantitative  journal article reporting standards (JARS; although please use your student ID rather than your name on the title page) . In situations where the APA provide different guidelines for ‘professional papers’ and a ‘student papers’, please use the professional guidelines. Although you can find student-friendly summaries of the APA’s guidelines in many research methods textbooks(e.g., Coolican, 2019), please be aware that many are still  based on the 6th   edition of the publication manual (the 7th   edition was only published in late 2019)  and that they are no substitute for the realthing. Use these summaries  and examples in addition to the guidelines published by the APA, not instead of them. Also note that published psychology papers, even those in journals published by the APA, are not necessarily in the ‘APA style! They are great for inspiration but should not be used as a ‘template’ for your own reports.

Content requirements: Your decisions regarding the content of each section should be guided by the requirements outlined in the publication manual and quantitative JARS. However, in brief, your report should contain the following sections:

Title page: The   APA  provide  recommendations for  a  good   title,  as   well  as  strict   formatting requirements for a title page. You do not need to include an author note and should use your student ID rather than your name so your report can be marked anonymously.

Abstract: An abstract is a brief yet comprehensive summary of the entire research report. It should outline the topic under investigation, as well as key participant characteristics, methods, findings and conclusions. It should be no longer than 150 words and can be unstructured or structured. If it  is structured, the section headers are included in the word count.

Keywords: These are words, phrases or acronyms that describe the most important aspects of your paper. Aim for three to five and try to avoid  repeating words that  are used in your title. Put your keywords on the same page as your abstract.

Introduction: This  section  should  introduce  the topic  or  problem  under  investigation,  overview relevant scholarship (i.e., past research findings and theoretical developments), and culminate in  a rationale and hypotheses forthe current study. It is a requirement that yourhypotheses allow you to test the key claims made Rosenbaumetal. (2017) . However, you are welcome to report additional analyses that are either hypothesis-driven or exploratory. We will talk more about this in your lab classes.

Method: This section describes the methods usedto collect the dataforhypothesis testingand should provide enough detail to permit a precise  replication. It should be divided into four subsections: Design, Participants, Materials, Procedure.

The Design section outlines your basic  research design, and clearly identifies your independent and dependent variables. This section is typically no longer than a few sentences.

The Participants section describes the sampling method used in the study, as well as the size and demographic characteristics  (if  known) of the final sample. It  should also  specify the  number of participants in each group or condition if applicable, and whetheranyone dropped out duringtesting or was excluded from the final sample (along with reasons, if known) . Finally,  it should  “provide  evidence that the study has sufficient power to detect effects of substantive interest” (APA, 2020, p. 86) .

The Materials section should describe the stimuli, tasks and/or equipment that participants were asked to respond to, as well as an account of how participants’ responses were aggregated and/or scored to create the variables in your statistical analyses.

Finally, the Procedure section should present a description of how data collection was carried  out. What were participants asked to do, and in what order? How long did this procedure take? There is no need to repeat information already provided in the Materials section here, and consequently this section is usually quite brief.

Results: The Results section should contain descriptive statistics for the dependent variables in your hypotheses (by condition/swhere applicable), an account of the statistical tests used to test your hypotheses, and a summary of the outcome of those tests. To facilitate  interpretation, you should also include appropriate measures of effect size and precision. Although assumption testing is  not usually reported in published research reports, it should be reported for this assessment. Finally, we  would like you to include a figure to illustrate yourresults. Think carefully about the datayou want to present in this figure, and how to display it clearly and honestly. Also note that the publication manual has many requirements forthe preparation of figures (and tables, if you elect to include one in your report) .

Placement offigures and tables: Thepublication manualsays that these can eitherplaced immediately afterthe paragraph(s) in which they are first mentioned, oron separate pagesat the end of the paper. Please do the former, as  it makes marking much easier. If a figure or table won’t fit in the space available below the paragraph in which it is first mentioned, put it on the next page. Someblank space is fine, and far preferable to unnecessarily splitting a figure or table across two pages.

Please note that is not acceptable to copy a write-up from a textbook, journal article, lecture slides or previous student report and then drop your own variables and numbers into it. You should be using  these sources as examples to workout what youneed to be saying, but then putting them aside before  you start writing. There are lots of different ways that you can write up the results of common  statistical  tests and simply  inserting your  own variables  and  numbers into  extracts copied from published (or unpublished) works is a form of plagiarism.

Finally, although you will work in small groups on substantial parts of this assessment (e.g., building the experiment, collecting data) and you will no doubt discuss your data analysis process and results  with  your  colleagues, you  must  run  your  own  analyses  and  write  them  up  independently. To encourage this, everyone will be assigned a slightly different sample of data. When it comes to writing your report, do it independently. This will minimise your likelihood of accidentally (or deliberately)  engaging in collusion. The  penalties for collusion and other forms of academic misconduct can be  severe and are best avoided.

Discussion: In this section, you should begin by considering your results relative to your hypothesis and previous research findings. The Discussion section should also highlight methodological aspects of the research which influence the interpretation and generalisation of your findings (these maybe strengths and/or limitations), theoretical and/or applied implications of your findings, and directions for future research. It should end with a brief paragraph summarising the key message that you want readers to take from your report.

Reference List: An APA style list of all the references cited in your report. Your selection and use of references should demonstrate that you are aware of the research (both old and new) which is most relevant to your study. You must only reference papers that you have actually read! For example, if you read about Koch et al. (2009)  in Rosenbaumetal. (2017), only Rosenbaumetal. (2017) should appear in your reference list. In text, you would use “Koch et al. (2009, as cited in Rosenbaumetal., 2017)” . A longer reference list is  not necessarily a better reference list and padding a reference list with material that you haven’tread is usually obvious to an experienced marker. Please note that it is not customary to cite any writing manuals or statistical texts/articles that you consult when preparing a research report, and consequently you are not expected to cite them in this assessment.

Online Supplement: As an online supplement to your report, please upload your data and the SPSS syntax needed to reproduce your hypothesis tests to the OSF ( https://osf.io) . Include anonymised ‘view only’ links to both in the body of your report. You  can choose to make your project public or leave it private. WhetheryourOSF project is public or private will have no impact on your marks for this report. What is important is that we can download your data and syntax and reproduce the results of your hypothesis tests. Please indicate clearly in the OSF project description and/or wiki that your data were collected for an assignment for PSYCM0081 at the University of Bristol.

Key Sources:

American  Psychological  Association.  (2020) . Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th  ed.) . https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Appelbaum, M., Cooper, H., Kline, R. B., Mayo-Wilson, E., Nezu, A. M., &  Rao, S. M. (2018) . Journal article reporting standards for quantitative research in psychology: The APA Publications and Communications    Board    Task     Force     report. American    Psychologist,    73(1),     3-25.

https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000191

Caron, E. E., Reynolds, M. G., Ralph, B. C. W., Carriere, J. S. A., Besner, D., & Smilek, D. (2020) .  Does posture      influence       the       Stroop       effect? Psychological Science, 31(11),       1452- 1460. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620953842

Rosenbaum, D., Mama, Y., & Algom, D. (2017) . Standby yourStroop: Standing up enhances selective attention     and      cognitive      control. Psychological      Science, 28(12),      1864-1867.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617721270

Smith, K. C., Davoli,  C. C.,  Knapp, W.  H., III., & Abrams, R. A. (2019) . Standing enhances cognitive control  and  alters  visual  search. Attention, Perception,  & Psychophysics, 81, 2320-2329.

https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-019-01723-6