lab report

Survey Data

Lab Report

PART I: Writing a Method Section

Describe the survey and the process by which you collected data so that a stranger could read this section and replicate exactly what you did. Your Method section must begin with the heading “Method” centered at the top of the page and contain 2 subsections (Participants and Stimulus Materials), be sure to label each subsection.

Participants: How many people participated? What is the distribution of gender and year in school (%)? What was the sampling plan? How did you administer the survey?

Stimulus Materials:

How many questions were included on the survey? How many questions were restricted choice vs open-ended? For restricted choice questions, what was the scale of the response options? For the open-ended questions, how was data aggregated?

PART II: Writing a Results Section

The results section for this class is greatly simplified. For the hypothesis you stated in your introduction (lab report 2), you must include a result. You must include all results that you plan to discuss in the Discussion section. For each result, you should report the statistical measurement and describe the finding.

You must include 1 qualitative result (based on the open-ended question) and 2 quantitative results. One quantitative result must be correlation between the two constructs. One quantitative result must be non-correlational (i.e. not a correlational result), but any of the other quantitative measure (semantic differential, quantitative, or categorical).

You will include the Results section in the same document as your Method section. It should begin immediately after the Method section (not on a new page) with the heading “Results” centered.

Example of how to report results:

When assessing the correlation between the semantic differential question tapping into stress and the quantitative question tapping into sleep, we found a weak positive correlation (r = .27), which means that as sleep increases, how relaxed someone feels increases as well.

In response to the question “I like candy” the mean response was 4.59 (SD = 0.44) on a 5-point scale where 4=agree and 5=strongly agree.

Overall, participants reported liking candy M = 4.59 (SD = 0.44) on a 5-point scale where

4=agree and 5=strongly agree with the statement “I like candy.”

Helpful hints:

1). A survey typically evaluates correlations, we cannot “prove” anything, do not use that word. Similarly, you cannot evaluate causation with a survey (e.g., you cannot say sleeping causes an increase in GRE scores based on the correlation in the example above).

2). Include the question in the Results section (do not say Question 4, the reader does not have your survey to look at when reading your paper) as in the example above.

PART III: Writing a Discussion Section

You will include the Discussion section in the same document as your Method and Results section and it begins immediately after Results (not on a new page), with the centered header “Discussion”.

The discussion must be shaped like a birthday hat: it starts narrow and ends broad. Begin by summarizing your specific results and stating whether your specific hypothesis was supported. Then relate your findings to other peer-reviewed literature (refer to some of the 3 articles you cited in your Introduction). Then discuss limitations of the study and suggest other related studies to conduct and close with a statement about the broad implications of this study to the world.

You may find that you need to get an additional peer-reviewed article from the literature to better understand your results. See Appendix A for a reminder of how to cite papers in the text of your Discussion.

Template for the Discussion Section.

Paragraph 1: Briefly review your research question, your specific hypothesis and the survey results. State whether your prediction was supported or refuted.

Paragraph 2: Is your result consistent with one of the peer-reviewed research papers you discussed in the Introduction? If yes, what new information does this survey provide? If not, why not? What potential 3rd variable might be at play here? Discuss a new peer-reviewed research article, if appropriate.

Paragraph 3: Is your result consistent with another peer-reviewed research papers you discussed in the Introduction? If yes, what new information does this survey provide? If not, why not? What potential 3rd variable might be at play here? Discuss a new peer-reviewed research article, if appropriate.

Paragraph 4: What are the limitations of this research? Why are they important? How might a researcher address these limitations in future research? If you give a limitation – give a suggestion for how you might fix it, otherwise do not include that limitation. NOTE: Do not say collect more data or conduct the study somewhere other than Syracuse. What are other interesting avenues to explore in relation to your research question?

Paragraph 5: What are the broad and general implications of your survey?

PART IV: Reference Section

Include a properly formatted APA-style reference section for the two articles you cite in the discussion section.

Appendix A

APA Style Formatting of References

APA Formatting: References in the Reference section:

References must be in alphabetical order by the first author’s last name. For each specific source, the authors should be listed in order of authorship. All authors should be included for each source. If two or more sources have the same authors in the same order, list those similar references in chronological order. (In the rare situation that two or more sources have identical authors and years, add an “a” after the year for the source whose title comes first alphabetically, followed by “b” after the year of the next source, etc.) You must use “hanging indent” (see the “paragraph options” of your word processor and look under special indent options) so that only the first lines are flush with the left side of the page and all other lines are indented by .5 in. Pay close attention to the punctuation and capitalization standards in APA style. Must be double spaced!

See Purdue Writing Center Online: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/a…

Reminder: Reference list should be in alphabetical order regardless of the type of source that you’re referencing. They are separated below so you know how to cite different sources but when you create your final list you will alphabetize them.

Journal Articles (peer-reviewed sources)

Bushman, B., & Anderson, C. (2009). Comfortably numb: Desensitizing effects of violent media on helping others. Psychological Science, 20, 273-277.

Epstein, R. (1997). Skinner as self-manager. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 30, 545-569.

Most, S., Smith, S. Cooter, A., Levy, B., & Zald, D. (2007). The naked truth: Positive, arousing distractors impair rapid target perception. Cognition and Emotion, 21, 964-981.

Book Chapter

Sternberg, R. J. (2003). Giftedness according to the theory of successful intelligence. In N. Colangelo & G. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of Gifted Education (pp. 88-99). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Book

Maslow, A. (1954). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper.

Webpage

Zelizer, J. E. (2009). Without jobs, where’s the recovery? Retrieved October 28, 2009, http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/10/27/opinion.juli…

APA Formatting: Citations within the Text (e.g., introduction):

Whenever you refer to someone else’s ideas, you must cite them. When writing your paper text, you can cite another’s idea in one of two ways: (1) the source’s name as part of the text of the sentence and the year in parentheses or (2) the name and year of the source in parentheses after the sentence text. Citations also differ depending on how many authors created the source:

If a source has just one author:

1. Use the author’s name in the sentence and include the date of publication inside parentheses after the author’s name:

“Smith (1975) found . . ..”

2. If you do not incorporate the author’s name into the sentence, include the information in the following format at the end of the sentence:

“. . . (Smith, 1975).”

If a source has two authors:

1. Use the authors’ names in the sentence and include the date of publication inside parentheses after the authors’ names:

“Jones and Ross (1995) found. . ..”

2. If you do not incorporate the authors’ names into the sentence:

“. . . (Jones & Ross, 1995)”

For a source with three or more authors, use the first author’s name followed by “et al.” and the date of the publication:

1. Use the authors’ names in the sentence and include the date of publication inside parentheses after the authors’ names:

“Black et al. (2005) argue that. . .”

2. If you do not incorporate the authors’ names into the sentence:

“. . . (Black et al., 2005).”