Method, Results and Discussion in an Experimental Report - Guide

Participants

Method: A good method section should contain all the information necessary for someone to replicate the experiment. There are, of course, limits to the information you need to provide (it is assumed that participants fill out a paper questionnaire with a pen or pencil). The method section should contain sub-sections to help organize the information Participants Basic demographic information of the sample should be provided here. Because we will be participating in experiments as a class, you will have limited demographic information to include, but you should still include the information you do have about the participants. Stimuli and apparatus A brief description (not a list) is necessary of the materials used. Use your discretion by only talking about crucial items. Design and Procedure This section should describe, in detail, what participants did during the experiment (something participants would have known), as well as how the experiment was structured (something that participants may not necessarily have known). For example, did all the participants take part in all conditions (‘within-participants’) or were only certain conditions completed by certain individuals (‘between-participants’)? What kinds of different trials were there and how many of each type did the participants take part in? Were the participants given any practice before carrying out the experiment? What was explained to the participant? What did the participant experience and how did the participants respond? v. Results: List the class result, but don’t go into detail here about all the numbers. What you should do is give a summary statement of the results. This includes information about the descriptive statistics, along with results from inferential statistics, which will be provided to you in class. You are not expected to do any calculations yourself. You can then present all the numbers in a table or graph format. Note: This is not a hard and fast rule, if you only have 2 numbers it may be best just to write in the numbers in the text and not include a table or graph. Any tables or figures do not count toward the page limit. You need to use your judgment and present the results in the clearest way possible for your reader. Make sure you don't present redundant or irrelevant information (e.g. don’t include a table and a graph of the same information). vi. Discussion: Explain what these results mean. In other words, how do the results relate to the purpose you explained at the beginning? This is where you can make inferences about cognitive processes behind the pattern of results. Make sure you are as detailed as possible in this section. You need to explain how the results support each statement you make in this conclusion. Do not draw a conclusion that does not have direct support from the results. Make sure you draw a direct link between the results and your interpretation. You should also include some reference to previous work (like you did in the introduction). How do the results of the class experiment relate to previous research? Are the results similar? Different? Are they what we predicted in our hypotheses based on what the existing literature said? What future experiments would be interesting based on the results of the class experiment? vii. References: This section should include a list of all the sources you cited in your report, but should not include sources you may have read but didn’t include. If you have cited personal communications in your text, you should not include them in the reference section. The purpose of this section is so others can look up the information you cite – since someone else can’t look up your personal communication, it shouldn’t go here.