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 dont 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
• Its what you read when you search an article on
  PsychInfo databases
• Its like the Readers 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?