Understanding a Psychological Study

A psychological study is research done by a psychologist or group of psychologists who use one of the experimental designs (observational/correlational/ experimental) to answer a research based questions It answers the research based question by using the parts of the scientific method The parts to a psychological study are: 1- Abstract 2- Introduction 3- Methods 4- Results 5- Discussion 6- References

The abstract contains a brief summary of what the current study is about. It may include the following: 1- the rationale of the study 2- the hypothesis of the study 3- a brief methodology of the study (how many subjects and from where) 4- 1 or 2 of the results *Please note this section rarely contains what will be included in the discussion category (the reasons for the results) Abstract Section

The introduction section of a psychological study is normally the most difficult and hardest to decipher Contains rationales/results from other previous studies that are related to your study Why do psychologists do this? To get evidence and support for their hypothesis Psychologists may use previous studies that were different from their own hypothesis or previous studies that were deemed not significant Introduction Section

The method section discusses the procedures and apparatuses (tools) that are used in the experiment This section also explains how random selection and random assignment was used (remember this is to control for the extraneous variables) Method Section

This section contains the results for the procedures that were carried out in the method section Results will tell the psychologist if their hypothesis was correct, and also if it was significant (p <.05) Remember, you can have a correct hypothesis but a not significant result The result section also contains tables and charts that will demonstrate the results and help you see the IV/DV This section also will explain the psychological test used (correlation, 2 x 2 anova, t-test, etc) Results Section

The discussion section of the study explains the following: Reasons for results Possible confounding variables and how to control for them in future studies Implications of the experiment (What does this mean now for real world science?) What future psychologists/researchers can do in future studies Discussion Section

The reference section contains other psychological experiments that were used in your intro or your discussion section References