Report

Tells the reader what the report is about.

A brief summary of the report. Should include background research, aims, hypotheses, methodology, results, conclusions and any suggestions for future research.

Give an overview of research previously done on the topic. Provides a background and rationale to the report.

• Aims and hypotheses
• Experimental design
  • IV and DV
  • Research method
  • Design used
  • Contols x 2 - 3
• Participants
  • How many
  • Gender
  • Age range
  • Who conducted the research
  • How they were allocated to conditions
  • Sampling
• Apparatus: a bullet-pointed shopping list of materials used
• Procedure: a step-by-step guide of how to replicate the research. Should include:
  • Brief, informed consent, standardised instructions, where it was conducted, how data was collected, debrief.

Gives a summary of findings.

Descriptive results

• Table (if applicable)
• Graph
• Interpretation of results

Inferential statistics

• Justification of choice of statistical test
• Level of significance chosen
• Statement of results - including writing out in full which hypothesis you have accepted

1) Did you accept or reject the null hypothesis? (write out in full which hypothesis it was). How did results compare to previous research? Support it? If so/not, why?

2) Any methodological criticisms? Ethical issues? Improvements? What could be done differently next time?

3) What is the next logical step of the research? Does it have any real world applications?

Gives the original sources of information used in the write-up.

Use to store detailed information not included in the main report: consent forms, standardised instructions, raw data table etc. Usually are numbered.