Reporting Psychological Investigations (OCR A-Level Psychology): Revision Notes

7.3.3 Reporting Psychological Investigations

Section	What is its purpose? What should it contain?
Title	Tells the reader what the report is about – should be concise and informative
Abstract	A summary of what the report is about – should cover the aims and hypothesis, the method/procedure, results, and conclusions.
Introduction	Introduce the background of the study – should include relevant theories and past studies to the research question, and should introduce ideas behind the research.
Aim and hypotheses	Tells the researcher what is going to be investigated and the direction of the results.
Method	Describe how the study was conducted; experimental design, participants, apparatus, resources, materials, pilot study and procedure – should have enough information to allow replication
Results	Reports the findings of the study clearly and accurately – should be descriptive (visual representations; graphs, charts etc) and inferential (conclusions and statistical analysis)

| Discussion | Summarises the findings of the results before going on to explore the best explanations of the findings. The researcher may consider the implications of the research and make suggestions for further research | | References | To inform the reader about the sources of information used – complete details of all research documents, journals, internet resources and books that were mentioned or used for background research | | Appendices | Used for detailed information not in the report – includes a copy of all resources used, raw data and statistical calculations (this aids peer review and replication of the study) |