Psych 241 – Methods Lab section 03

Psych 241 – MethodsLab section 03 TuTh – 4:00-5:15

Rough Drafts! • I will be handing these back at the end of class with quizzes attached. So don’t run away! • Don’t lose them! I want them returned to me along with your final drafts, please!

Goals • Rough Drafts • Survey Study

Papers/Rough Drafts • Some things to keep in mind when you return to your drafts: • Plain Grammatical English – Always better. • Whenever you use a comparative or relational word, include what you are comparing it to. ‘No Labels’ can’t simply be faster, it must be faster THAN SOMETHING ELSE. • Double space! It is easier for me to read and grade/make notes.

Papers/Rough Drafts • We can never prove anything. Science doesn’t prove anything, it provides support for things. • Italy earthquake • Scientists

Headings (from PurdueOWL)

Headings (from PurdueOWL) • Two situations where we don’t. • Abstract (non-bolded and centered) • References (non-bolded and centered) • ALSO, no heading for the introduction section!

Title Page/Headers • When using headers, numbers always go on the top, flush to the right. • The header should consist of a few words that signify what the paper is, usually a short form of the title. • On the Title Page, your header should include the words ‘Running head:’ before the header. Pages after that should NOT have it. • Aside from header and page number, a Title Page needs a title, your name, and your institution. • That should be centered, about a third of the way down.

Abstract • First sentence or sentences should talk about why we are studying this. • I will clarify that when we talk about the introduction. • State your hypothesis. • State the results.

Introduction • The Stroop effect is the general (and well supported) finding that incongruent information (such as a wrong name) can interfere with other tasks (such as identifying a silhouette) • Rosinski and colleagues then ran a version of a Stroop task, which was interested in whether words inside of an image interfere with identifying the image if they are incongruent. They also included a third level of their IV, by having an unrelated but rhyming word included. • If we look at the online task, we can see the limitation.

Introduction • Then Ehri reviewed that paper, and explained why having no words was a better comparison than congruent words. • We are replicating Ehri’s findings. • Questions? • I didn’t explain this right when we started, so do your best with this, and don’t worry!

Introduction

Introduction • So, summarize the of interference (from Stroop) • Summarize why Ehri did her study (Rosinski et al.) • REMEMBER that when writing the introduction, your reader does not know your results, so don’t tell them yet. Explain what you want to test, how you will test it, and your proposed results.

Introduction/In-text citation • In APA style: • We don’t include paper titles. • We DO cite in text as follows (Ehri, 1976), or “Ehri (1976) reported that…”, or “Ehri found there was interference in seconds-graders, such that incongruent stimuli took longer than no-label stimuli (1976)”

Method • Use the subsections that we talked about! • In participants subsection, you can report the number of participants using scientific notation (e.g. N = 330) • Also, some of you included information on age, we don’t know everyone’s age, so generally we don’t guess.  • In the materials section, don’t forget to mention the instruction sheets that we used.

Results • Always try to make things more concise. For example, embed your stats in the sentence that simply describes what you found. (e.g. “I found that young people (M = ___, SD = ___) are significantly more negative than older people (M = ___, SD = ___) when looking at sad images, t (1,43) = _____, p = ___. • Include significance tests in the same sentence! • No number-dependent sentences. • Exception: The hypotheses were tested at a significance level of ___.

Results • Remember where to use italics! • Remember to describe the kind of test we used, paired sample vs. independent sample. • Include a wrap-up sentence.

Reference Section • APA style! • Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. • Hanging indentation!

Figures • When including Figures (either graphs or the images we used) you want to label them Figure _ (number). • Also, on the Figures page, head it with the word “Figures” – no bold, centered. • Underneath each Figure, state the figure name “Figure _: Title explaining what the figure is of”

Finally: • No guarantee of an A! • If you make these changes, you will do better for sure, however.  • I am asking a lot here, but each progressing paper will be easier this way.

Okay! Survey project. • Goal of this project. • The kind of survey topic we are looking for:

Homework • Final Draft! • Three statements for the survey. • One demographic variable of interest.

Contact Information • ladelman@psych.umass.edu • Tobin 626 • Office hour: Tuesdays from 1-2pm

Psych 241 – Methods Lab section 03