Making presentations

1. Making presentations Psych 231: Research Methods in Psychology

2. Don’t forget: Class experiment papers are due in class this Wednesday of this week • No formal lab meetings this week. Use the time to meet and work on your group project posters Announcements

3. Presenting your research • Posters • Talks • Papers Presentations

4. To present your work/theory/research • Get feedback • It is an opportunity for peers to ask you questions about your work • For you to ask them questions • You want your audience to walk away remembering a few key points • So your goal is to be as clear as possible Why do presentations?

5. Broad Hourglass shape • Introduction of the issue • Background information • Specific hypotheses • Design • Results • Interpret the results • General Conclusions Specifics of your study Broad Rough sketch of a presentation

6. Consider your audience - who are they, what do they want, what do they already know • Start collecting the things that you think that you’ll need - graphs, tables, pictures, examples, data analyses, etc. • Determine the key points that you want them to remember • focus your presentation on these points • Camping trip analogy • Your initial pack usually has too much stuff • Need to figure out what to take out • Practice, rehearse, and then practice again Preparation

7. Stick to the hourglass shape for content • Balance of text and figures • Use bullet points • Give example stimuli • Use large enough font to read from 6 feet away • End with 3 or 4 key “take home” points • Decide what these are at the beginning, and then construct the poster so that they are the logical take home points Poster content

8. Initial sketch/outline • Rough layout • Balance (text/pictures, data/conclusions) • Typography • Movement • Simplicity • Final layout Brief checklist for the poster

9. FLOW Title Authors and affiliation • Introduction • Not a lot of detail • Just the main points • Hypotheses & • predictions • Results • Graphs/tables • Bullet points of • main results • Conclusions • 3 or 4 take home • points • Potential limitations • Methods • Not a lot of detail • just the main points • Participants • Design • IVs & DVs • Examples of stimuli • References • If you cite something • give the full reference

10. FLOW Title Authors and affiliation • Methods • Results Introduction • Conclusions • References

11. Percent recall • main effect of stimulus type • main effect of mnemonic • no interaction mnemonics No mnemonics pictures words Methods References Conclusions The pen is mightier than the brush: Using mnemonics Leon DaVinci and Bill Shakespear Illinois State University Introduction • Remembering things is often a • challenge in everyday life. • “What was I supposed to • get at the grocery store?” • (Cutting, 2000) • We examined two factors • We predicted: • mnemonic devices will help • memory for both pictures and words • effect larger for words than pictures Results • Stimulus type matters: • participants remembered words • better than pictures • Use of mnemonic devices helps • memory performance • Potential limitations • stimulus type: pictures/words • use of mnemonics • 900 native English speakers • 2 x 2 between groups design • Measured the percent correctly recalled • items from a free recall procedure • 24 pictures and words words pictures books Cutting J. C. (2000). Finding things in your house. Journal of Memory and Stuff, 17, pg 1-230. frog

12. Arrive early and set up • Author(s) stand next to poster • Have a short “walk through” presentation ready • Answer questions (also ask questions) • Handout copies of the poster available (sometimes), or a request sign-up Presentation of the poster

13. Content • Introduction • Problem of interest • Very brief summary of past research • Basic purpose of experiment(s) • Hypotheses • Method • Brief but clear • Design • Materials • Procedure (brief) Your posters (our checklist)

14. Content cont. • Results • Descriptive statistics • Inferential results • Discussion • Hypothesis rejected or supported • Implication of results • A few take home points • References • Tables and figures • Useful info to reader • Easy to understand Your posters (our checklist)

15. Format • Overall clarity • Organization • Font size • Figure/text balance • Title • Authors Your posters (our checklist)

16. Research Presentations • (typically 10 to 30 mins) • Paper with respondent • Panel Presentation • Workshop Different kinds of talks

17. Create a logical progression to the talk • Hourglass shape • Work on the transitions between slides • Be brief, but include enough details so that the audience can follow the arguments • Use slides to help simplify/clarify points • Include tables, graphs, pictures, etc. • Don’t just read the slides • but do “walk through” those that need it (e.g. graphs of results) • Be careful of jargon, explain terms (if in fact you really need them) Talk Content

18. Make it smooth (lots of practice will help) • Watch your speaking rate (again, practice) • Maintain eye contact with whole audience • Emphasize the key points, make sure that the audience can identify these • Point to the slides if it helps • Beware jokes, can be a double-edged sword • Don’t go over your time Presentation of the talk

19. Repeat the question in your own words • so that the rest of the audience can hear it • to make sure that you understood the question • to buy yourself some time to think about the answer • Try not to be nervous • you know your study better than anyone else • When preparing, try to think of likely questions and prepare answers Dealing with questions

20. Preparation • Analyze the audience • Choose your main points • etc. • Prepare the Final Outline • fix any problems/loose ends • Construct your “speaking” outline • e.g., the note cards that you’ll read • Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse Checklist for the talk

21. Reporting your results • The observed differences • Because there may be a lot of these, may present them in a table instead of directly in the text • Kind of design • e.g. “2 x 2 completely between factorial design” • Computed F-ratios • May see separate paragraphs for each factor, and for interactions • Degrees of freedom for the test • Each F-ratio will have its own set of df’s • The “p-value” of the test • May want to just say “all tests were tested with an alpha level of 0.05” • Any post-hoc or planned comparison results • Typically only the theoretically interesting comparisons are presented Factorial ANOVAs