I need someone to write a research paper!

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Paper Format

Overview

  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Literature review
  • Method
  • Results
  • Discussion

Purpose of Paper

  • Present & describe new research findings
  • Findings should be put in context of current knowledge

  • Class project

Abstract

  • Concise summary not to exceed 120 words
  • Should include
  • Information on the problem under study
  • The nature of the sample
  • A description of methods, equipment, and procedures
  • A statement of the results (broadly, no stats)
  • A statement of the conclusions drawn

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Introduction

  • Need to review and describe the research that has already been done on the topic

  • Should include at least 5 sources

Purposes of Literature Review

  • To fully describe the results from prior research
  • What is the “state of the knowledge”?

  • To clearly state the purposes of the study
  • Purpose is to address some need

  • To clearly state the hypotheses, which should follow logically from the literature review

Literature Review

  • Begin with broad introduction
  • State & describe the problem
  • Why is this topic theoretically or practically important?

  • Introduce the problem or theory

Literature Review

  • Next discuss the research - organize by variable or topic (not by study)
  • Begin by summarizing the entire literature on that variable/topic
  • Prior research either (1) supports a clear effect; (2) is mixed; or (3) is non-existent.
  • If there is a clear effect, what is it?

Current Study

  • What variable(s) are you looking at
  • Why is this research needed (not why it is important)
  • Your hypothesis – what you expect your results to show
  • Should be a separate hypothesis for each IV in your study
  • Important to indicate (explicitly) why you think that is what will happen – is it based on what prior research has found?

Research Need

  • Research is “needed” if:
  • Variable has never been investigated before
  • Variable has been investigated before, but…
  • Something was done wrong
  • Inconsistent results
  • Not in all contexts (new context, new sample)
  • Not investigated at same time as another variable

Good Hypotheses

  • Contain two variables
  • Specify values of measured variable or levels of manipulated variable
  • Predict whether relationship exists
  • Indicate direction of the effect
  • Predictive - which value or range of the measured variable has more or less of the dependent variable
  • Causal - which level of the independent variable has more or less of the dependent variable

Organization of Intro

1.unknown

Method Section

  • Purpose
  • To explain to the reader exactly how you conducted your study
  • Other researchers should be able to replicate your study based solely on the info provided in this section

*

Method Section

  • Participants
  • Design
  • Procedure
  • Materials and Measures

* Should include each of these as separate sections

- Use subheadings in italics

*

What to Include

  • Description of participants
  • How many
  • Demographics
  • Race, Age, Gender breakdown
  • Compensation if applicable

Example

  • Participants were 250 undergraduate psychology students who participated as jurors in return for class credit. Mock jurors were predominantly Hispanic (54%), followed by African American (20%), Caucasian (15.2%), Asian (4.8%), and Other (6%). The mean age of participants was 20.4 years. A majority of participants (81.2%) were female, with no prior jury experience (98.4%).

What to Include

  • Design
  • Type of design
  • Correlational / Experimental
  • Correlational design
  • Specify variables
  • Experimental design
  • Between/within subjects design
  • # of Independent variables
  • Levels of manipulated variables
  • Mention what the DV is

*

Design

  • Correlational design
  • The design was a correlational design, examining the relationship between Variable 1 and Variable 2.

  • Experimental design
  • The design was a single factor (IV: level 1 vs. level 2) between-subjects [within-subjects] design.
  • The design was a single factor (treatment type: new vs. old) between-subjects design.

Design

  • Factorial design
  • The design was a 2 (IV: level 1 vs. level 2) X 3 (IV: level 1 vs. level 2 vs. level 3) between/within subjects design…

  • The design was a 2 (testimony: examination only vs. examination plus videotape) X 2 (ID accuracy: accurate vs. inaccurate) mixed design with testimony as a between-subjects factor, and identification accuracy as a within-subjects factor.

What to Include

  • Procedure
  • Description of the experiment
  • What happens?
  • What do your participants do?
  • Be as detailed as possible – other researchers should be able to replicate your experiment

* Don’t include details specific to IUP (e.g., experimenter evaluation sheets), or to you as the experimenter (e.g., tested 5 participants)

What to Include

  • Materials and Measures
  • Description of any materials used
  • Questionnaire – should describe it in this section
  • Content
  • Number of questions
  • Content of questions (give examples)
  • Types of questions (open-ended, restricted)
  • Scale, end points

Results Section

  • Purpose of this section
  • Report your findings
  • Descriptive statistics (e.g., Normality) only included if there were problems with normality
  • If that is the case note that there was a problem and what you did to correct it
  • Transformations used

*

Results Section

  • First paragraph
  • Explain what you did for data analysis
  • What statistical tests you applied and in what order
  • Note that you used SPSS 17 to conduct the analyses
  • Make sure to note the alpha level you used for inferential tests
  • “All statistical tests employed an alpha level of .05.”

Results Section

  • The dependent variable was analyzed with an analysis of variance (ANOVA). For all comparisons p < .05 was adopted as the criterion for establishing statistical significance. Necessary follow up comparisons were done using Bonferroni. All statistical analyses were performed with SPSS Version 16.

Results Section

  • Next, report what you found
  • Use complete sentences
  • Included
  • The effect being evaluated
  • Whether or not difference between treatment levels was statistically significant
  • Critical statistic used, Degrees of freedom
  • Value of obtained statistic
  • Level of significance achieved

Statistical Notation

Statistical Test Format

Analysis of variance F (1,85) = 5.96, p < .01

Chi-square χ2(3,N = 100) = 11.34, p < .01

t test t (56) = 4.78, p < .01

z test z = 2.04, p < .05

Pearson correlation r = .87 or r = -.87

coefficient

*

Statistical Notation

  • Round means & beta values to 2 decimal places
  • Give p values like this:
  • If .000 write p < .001
  • If between .001 and .009 write p < .01
  • If between .010 and .044 write exact p value to 2 decimal places (so = .01 to .04)
  • If between .045 and .050, write p < .05
  • If between .051 and .080, give exact p value to 3 decimal places
  • Means can be given in text or in Table (your choice)
  • In text easier if few results and they are simple

*

Discussion Section

  • In Discussion section, results are interpreted, conclusions drawn, and findings are related to previous research

  • Section begins with a brief restatement of hypotheses

  • Next, indicate if hypotheses were confirmed

Discussion Section

  • Consider your results & hypotheses in light of previous research
  • Because your hypotheses come from prior research
  • If your results support your hypothesis, is more research needed? May some other variable moderate the effect? Are there different samples or methods to use to study the effect? Can a firm conclusion be reached?

Discussion Section

  • If results are not the same as hypothesized, suggest a reason why not - reason “can be investigated in future research”

  • It is fine to speculate, but make sure speculations are supported by the data

Discussion Section

  • Point out any methodological problems you may have encountered during the study that could restrain some of your conclusions

  • Should discuss real-world implications of the results
  • What would be the effect in the real world?
  • Would you suggest that lawyers, clinicians, employers, parents do something different?

Discussion Section

  • Need a part on “Directions for Future Research”
  • Based on your results what is the next step?
  • Other relevant variables?, replication in other contexts?

  • Need a part on “Limitations”
  • Any challenges to internal or external validity?

Organization of Discussion

2.unknown

Discussion Section

Restatement of hypotheses

(2) Integration of results with prior research

(3) Discussion of real-world implications

(4) Limitations

(5) Directions for future research

Present a general

introduction to your topic

Review relevant

literature

Link literature review to

your hypotheses

State your

hypotheses

Restate your hypotheses

or major finding

Tie your results with

previous research and

theory

State broad implications of

your results, methodological

implications, directions for

future research