Reading (and Writing) About Research Studies

1. Reading (and Writing) About Research Studies • Is this fun? Not usually but we can be duped by others if we don’t know the research!!! • Peer-reviewed journals contain the most VALID research findings (beware of pseudo-scientific journals!) • Studies are written up in “APA style” which is an agreed upon way to present research findings (from American Psychological Association) • The following “tips” apply when reading an article

2. Types of APA Papers • LITERATURE REVIEW ARTICLE (“ARGUMENTATIVE PAPER”) – less common • Involves reviewing and summarizing past research and drawing some kind of conclusion about what the research has shown to this point in time • Also usually makes suggestions for additional studies that need to be conducted to answer questions about the topic • RESEARCH STUDY ARTICLE – more common • Involves presenting original research study and its findings

3. APA Style: Parts of Research Study • ABSTRACT – this summarizes • what purpose the study had • how it was conducted • what the findings were • and what the implications of these finding are • It’s what you read when you search an article on PsychInfo databases • It’s like the Reader’s Digest condensed version of the entire research report

4. APA Style: Parts of Research Study • INTRODUCTION – this section has a few important parts • It defines the topic of the research report (the WHAT) • It then tells the reader what other earlier researchers have already learned about this topic (called a “literature review”) and how they conducted their studies (the BACKGROUND) • Lastly, it tells the reader what the purpose is of the research conducted by the author of the paper (the PURPOSE)

5. APA Style: Parts of Research Study • METHOD – this section has many sub-parts • PARTICIPANTS (SUBJECTS) - provides relevant information about who we studied (the WHO) • SETTING / MATERIALS – gives information about where the study was conducted and with what materials • PROCEDURE – how the study was conducted (in great detail!). Also includes description of the VARIABLES studied and what the hypothesized functional relationship is expected to be.

6. APA Style: Parts of Research Study • RESULTS • presents the data AND what conclusions we can draw from the data • Tells the reader whether the study turned out as was hypothesized • Studies with large groups of participants will often have STATISTICS which tell the reader how confident we can be that the results were not a fluke occurrence (“SIGNIFICANT” = NOT LIKELY DUE TO CHANCE) • Also refers to graphs or tables that depict the data

7. APA Style: Parts of Research Study • DISCUSSION • Explains WHY the data turned out as they did (presents THEORY underlying the effect seen) • Compares the findings of the study to past studies: did they agree with or disagree with past studies? Did the new study add anything to what we already knew? • Is it possible that other causes not identified by the researcher (called CONFOUNDS) might have led to the findings? • What future research questions do we still need to investigate?