Psychology Department Citation Style Recommendation
The Psychology department directs students to APA style guide.
Guidelines to Writing Psychology 101 Lab Reports
Prepared by C.J. Gillig and Psych Dept. faculty
Since this may be your first psychology lab report I thought it would be a good idea to let you know what I look for when I grade your lab reports.
General format
Psychology 101 lab reports should be typed, double-spaced, and 3-5 pages in length. They should be written in clear and concise language. Since your report will be written after the lab is completed, it should always be written in the past tense. It is not, “take a rat and put it in a Skinner box” but rather “the rat was placed in a Skinner box.” For organizational clarity, you should follow the general style guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA), which are summarized below.
In addition, you should use a cover page that contains an appropriate title, your name, date and Psyc 101. It is best if you put your name in the upper left-hand corner of the page, as that makes it easier when we return them.
Label each section of your report: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and References. A science report is not a continuous essay. Each section contains specific information. Below please find information about what is to be included in each section, as well as some notes on the problems that commonly occur in each section and how to avoid them.
The Introduction
The main body of the paper opens with the introduction. Its purpose is to lay out the specific problem under study and where it fits in the context of psychology as a whole. In writing the introduction, consider questions such as: What is the point or purpose of the lab? What are its implications and its relationship to other material covered in Psych 101 (e.g., theories, other empirical research)? A good introduction should address such issues in a couple of paragraphs.
Students often have a problem with the introduction. In many ways it is the hardest section to write. You should give some background information to the subject of the study. Perhaps another study or set of studies provided the background. Maybe you read related articles that the professor gave out in class. If you did so and you discuss them, you must cite the references (see “References” section for the APA citation style to use). The laboratory might relate to some aspect of human behavior that you are interested in. Whatever your inspiration you must clearly state your hypothesis: what are you trying to show and how do you plan to show it? Many students give beautiful background information but fail to state the hypothesis. This section sets the mood for the entire piece. If it is well written it draws the reader into the rest of the report.
The Methods Section
The methods section should describe how the lab was conducted in enough detail to permit another person to replicate it if s/he so desires. You should divide this section into separate subsections: Participants (which includes a description of the age, demographics, nature of recruitment of the participants), Materials (e.g., videotapes, questionnaires, apparatus, testing equipment for animals), and Procedure (e.g., how the conditions or manipulations were arranged, the instructions to participants, the testing or observations conditions – essentially what was done during the lab).
The methods section is often the easiest section to write. Just give enough information so that someone else could repeat the study. If you are using a group of tests you should describe each one. What is the purpose of each test? How will it be scored? What will be computed? Describe exactly what you did. Many students err by merely presenting a summary of the methods. I will usually comment that more details were needed. The most common error in the methods section is that students tend to label each step with numbers and they use sentence fragments to describe each step. This will always get a negative comment from me. Please use regular prose style with complete sentences when describing the methods. Outline style is not permitted.
The Results Section
The results should summarize the data that were collected and, if any, the results of the statistical tests used to analyze the data. In reporting the results, choose the medium that presents them most clearly and economically. For example, it may be useful to use a table for the means and standard deviations of your measures for each condition in the study. Or, a figure (graph) might be used to represent the means. In addition to reporting the general and statistical findings, you might also – if you were a participant in the research – write about your own responses and observations.
The main error I find in the results section is that students often do not describe the results. What is the main finding? Put it into words. For example:
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Female subjects on average scored higher than males on a test of verbal skills (Females, M = 25; Males, M = 24.)
Another way to present results is to place the numbers in a table. As you describe the results you refer the reader to the table such as:
- Female subjects on average scored higher than males on a test of verbal skills (Table 1).
Tables are not figures; graphs are figures, so don’t refer to “Table 1” as “Figure 1.”
The Discussion Section
Finally, you are in a position to evaluate and interpret the lab findings with respect to the hypotheses and the relevant background theories/research that were laid out in the introduction. In this section, you are free to examine, interpret, and qualify the results. You may also draw inferences from them and speculate about their implications for broader theoretical or practical issues. If applicable, similarities and differences between the lab results and the work of others (the background reading) can be discussed.
The discussion section is the creative part of the lab report. It usually begins with a brief summary of your major finding. Then you must interpret your results. Do your results support the hypothesis you stated in the introduction? Why or why not? Are there alternative hypotheses that might better explain your results? How might we improve the experiment? Lastly, you might speculate on what these results tell us about human behavior and psychology in general. This is your place to shine. Have fun with this part! Most High Passes are gained by the quality of the ideas presented in the discussion and the way they are expressed.
The Reference Section
On a separate page (the last page) of your report list the references that you cited in the body of the report. The title: References should be centered at the top of this page, followed by each reference, and the entire thing should be double-spaced throughout (both within and across each reference).
References are listed alphabetically by the last name of the author of the work. In APA style references the order of the author, title, journal, volume # and page numbers matters, as does the indentation, capitalization, and punctuation. Refer to the APA Style section of this citation guide for more information.
The reference section is often ignored to the dismay of those who hope to get a High Pass.
If we assign readings for the lab you must list them in the reference section and you must somehow use them in the introduction as background or in the discussion section to help explain your results. Please make sure that you give the citation as completely as possible. Sometimes the instructor may not give you enough information to write a complete citation; in that case, please just give as much as we give you. Incidentally, you can cite the textbook as a source but be sure to list it completely. That would be NOT “Psychology Textbook,” rather:
Kassin, S. (2001). Psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
When you are referring to a source in the body of the paper, it is also necessary to give the author’s name, date, and (only if it is a direct quote) page number(s). For example, if in your introduction you used the direct quote ”studies show that rejected children are at risk to get picked on by peers” the citation would look like this:
….”studies show that rejected children are at risk to get picked on by peers” (Kassin, 2001, p. 401).
If you paraphrase Kassin’s words but still get the idea from that reading, you must cite it also but do not include the page number(s):
...if peers reject a child, that child is more likely to become a victim of others as well (Kassin, 2001).
Finally, avoid footnotes in psychology lab reports. Do all of your explaining in the text itself and cite references as noted above, not in footnotes.
Final words on style
A clear and concise style is the goal. Please write in complete sentences. Beware of run-on sentences. Poor writing automatically puts the reader in a bad mood and casts doubt on the content of the study. Proofread! And if possible, let someone proofread the report or use the writing workshop if needed.
It used to be that everything had to be written in third person, passive voice. We would say “The subjects were given four tests” but not “We gave the subjects four tests.” I still prefer the style of the first sentence but this rule has been relaxed.