Research Paper
https://opentextbc.ca/researchmethods/chapter/single-subject-research-designs/ (Information on single-subject design)
our text Chapter 13 pages 411-417
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4412849/ (A review article about using Contingency Management to increase activity levels)
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2009/08/physical-inactivity.aspx (Explanation of current sedentary rates for Americans.)
Washington, W. D., Banna, K. M., & Gibson, A. L. (2014). Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 47, 231-245.
Abstract
The abstract is a brief summary, typically 75-100 words (no more than 960 characters, including spaces), of the purpose and content of the paper. The abstract is typed in block form (a single paragraph with no indentation) and is written last, after the paper is finished. The abstract typically contains about six sentences. The first sentence introduces and describes the general problem under investigation. 25%-35% of American adults are inactive. Devices widely available to help monitor and motivate an increase in activity. The second sentence provides pertinent information about the subjects, including sample size and selection criteria. This study focused on a single subject (describe) who was a student in PSY355 Introduction to Research Methods (use name). The third and fourth sentences summarize the overall methodology including independent and dependent variables. The subjects used (describe) to track steps per day for 10 days. During baseline, subjects recorded their daily step total. On the 6th day, subjects were required to meet a step goal set at a 25% increase of the baseline step average in order to earn an e-token. At the end of the 5 days of intervention, the e-tokens were combined and entered into a lottery. The fifth sentence summarizes the main results. The final sentence states the general conclusions and implications of the study. If you have access to a copy of the APA Manual, refer to pages 25-27 for more information
Method
Participants and Setting
A young adult male or female age ? was recruited from his/her PSY355 class at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington to participate in this study. Describe the University. The Method section is usually divided into three basic subsections: (a) Participants (b) Materials and/or Apparatus, and (c) Procedure. Occasionally, other subsections are included as well, e.g., Design. The Participants, or Subjects, subsection provides pertinent demographic information about those who participated in the study, including number or participants, demographic about the participants, (who they were, where they were from, number of males and females, and average age or age range of participants), selection criteria (volunteers? randomly selected from the phone book?), and incentives (paid? received credit for class? As part of a research project conducted by the PSY355 class). If data from any participant(s) were excluded, state how many participants this involved and why their data were not used. If you have access to an APA manual refer to pages 62-63 for more information concerning the format of headings.
Materials and Apparatus
This information is sometimes presented in several subsections, labeled simply Materials or Equipment or Apparatus, or Measures depending on what equipment or tests were used for the study. Here you should simply describe the equipment (what monitoring device did you use and app) stimulus materials (tables and screen shots, e-tokens), and measures used. Equipment brand names and model numbers should be included when applicable. The information in this subsection should be adequate enough to enable the reader to acquire or reproduce all the materials used. If an unpublished questionnaire was used, you may want to include it in its entirety in an Appendix. Specific procedures involving the use of the equipment and materials should be omitted here and saved for the following Procedure section.
Procedure and/or Design
In this subsection, the first paragraph should describe in sufficient detail the experimental design, including levels of the independent and dependent variables, as well as any counterbalancing and randomization techniques used. You may want to make this a separate Design subsection if your design is a complex one. Next, you should describe the procedure in sufficient detail that the reader could imagine being a subject. Remember to write the procedure in temporal order (i.e., order the procedural events as they occurred in time). A simple and useful heuristic ("rule of thumb") is to have your mother, spouse, or roommate read this section; if he or she can describe to you everything you did (in order) when conducting the study, then your procedure section is fine! The description of the procedure should include instructions to participants, formation of groups, and specific manipulations and debriefing of participants. If you have access to an APA manual, refer to pages 29-32 for more information of the Method section.
Results
The Results section provides a summary of the data collected and the specific statistical analyses computed, emphasizing what happened without attempting to explain why. Make a clear statement at the beginning of the section about what scores were used in the analyses. Report relevant results, including those contrary to the hypotheses. Organize the section in the manner in which the data were analyzed. Present the primary analyses first, which presumably were based on a priori hypotheses. Next, present any post hoc analyses which were necessitated by the preliminary analyses. If you have access to an APA manual, refer to pages 20-26 for more information on the Results section.
Results sections are often less cluttered and more easily interpreted when tables and figures are used. Bar graphs, line graphs, drawings, or diagrams are referred to as figures, while tables are simply tables. Groups of descriptive data such as means and standard deviations are commonly organized in a table. Likewise, figures give the reader a quick visual representation of the results of a particular analysis or even of the entire study. Note that there is no header on the actual figure, and that the figure caption is on a separate page. Tables and figures are each placed on separate pages and are located at the very end of the paper. Make sure that all the tables and figures you use are referred to in the Results section. Two examples might be, "Figure 1 illustrates the interaction between alcohol consumption and sleep deprivation on sexual performance" and "means and standard deviations for the monkey performance scores versus the psychology major performance scores are presented in Table 1."
Discussion
The first paragraph of the discussion restate the purpose and hypotheses of the study and then clearly state whether the results of the study support your hypotheses, in terms of the independent and dependent variables. Be sure to include the frequency of obesity information with citation here. Next, you interpret your results; if they supported your hypotheses, you can simply emphasize that.
References
Use appropriate APA style references
Tables and Graphs
See the APA style guide. You will need to write a figure caption.
Appendix
Include your data table with your screen shots. See the APA guide for formatting.
More helpful information:
Discussion section
�� Talk about any qualifications important to your findings (all studies have weaknesses/qualifications). This includes alternative explanations for the results. For example, you might speculate about an unexamined third variable that was not present in you study. However, BE SPECIFIC and back up any assertions you make. For example, if you claim that 3rd variables might affect your correlations, tell me what they are and how they would affect your correlations.
�� Speculate about future directions that research could take to further investigate your question. This might relate back to any weaknesses you’ve mentioned above (or reasons why the results didn’t turn out as expected). Future directions may also include interesting next steps in the research.
�� A discussion section is about what we have learned so far; and where we should go next; Your final conclusion should talk briefly about the broader significance of your findings. What do they imply about human nature or some aspect of it?
Important Parts of the Paper Don’t Forget Them!!
Title page - Try to write a title that maximally informs the reader about the topic, without being ridiculously long. Use titles of articles you've read as examples of form. Also provide the RUNNING HEAD and an abbreviated title that appears in the header of each page along with the page number. Provide your name and institutional affiliation (University of North Carolina at Wilmington). See APA Manual and sample paper.
Abstract - Write the abstract LAST. An abstract is a super-short summary and is difficult to write.
Info on abstracts from APA manual:
An abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of an article, allowing readers to survey the contents quickly.
A good abstract is:
�� accurate: Ensure that your abstract correctly reflects the purpose and content of your paper. Do not include information that does not appear in the body of the paper.
�� self-contained: Define all abbreviations and acronyms. Spell out names of tests/ questionnaires. Define unique terms. Paraphrase rather than quote.
�� concise and specific: Make each sentence maximally informative, especially the lead sentence. Begin the abstract with the most important information (your question), but do not repeat the title. Be as brief as possible.
�� non-evaluative: Report rather than evaluate: do not add to or comment on what is in the body of the manuscript.
�� coherent and readable: Write in clear and vigorous prose. Use the third person rather than the first person.