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Psyc 1420: Experimental Psychology: Human Behavior

Guidelines for Lab Report #2

This report will be a full lab report. You are already familiar with the format, structure and
thought process involved in writing lab reports. Though this report will include a few more
elements than the first lab report, we still expect the sections to be brief and to contain the most
critical information. We have indicated below what you need to include in each section. You do
not need to go beyond this. If your paper is too long and we feel you have included unnecessary
information, we will deduct points (for format). Please refer to your textbook again for an
expanded description of what to include in each section and Purdue's O.W.L. site
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/22/ for the final word on APA formatting of
references, citations, title page, running head, abstract - etc.

Title Page
Try to describe as specifically as possible the take-home message of your study in
approximately 12 words or less. Dont forget to include your name and lab section.

Abstract
Summarize your report. The more specific you can be in the number of words you are
allowed (100-120 words), the better. There are four things you need to say: What the question is;
what you did (key aspects of the method); what you found; and what you conclude based on your
findings.

Introduction (approx 1 - 2 pages)

What was your motivation for conducting this study? What did you hope to learn? The
introduction is a chance for you to explain to the reader why the phenomenon you studied is
special, to summarize what has been done before, and to show that your study fills a gap by
addressing an interesting question. For this project, your introduction should include the
following:

1. Brief introductory paragraph motivating the reader by introducing the general

theoretical ideas.
2. Explain prior research findings in this area. For this lab report, you will have a very
abbreviated literature review. You should briefly discuss the dual task paradigm and
why it is interesting. You can cite both theoretical and applied research sources. Four
articles related to the dual-task paradigm have been posted on CourseWorks in the
"Related Readings" folder for "Lab 2 - Dual Task". Two are more theoretical. Two
are more applied. You must have at least 2 references to prior research in your paper.
You can select from the articles on CourseWorks or if you are inspired, find others.
3. Explain your hypothesis. You should explain the logic of your hypothesis. You
should explain the logic of why the variables you selected are interesting and/or why
varying them addresses an interesting question.
4. Explain the study (depending on how you write it up, you may introduce the study
along with the hypotheses).

Method (approx 1- 1 pages)

The method section should describe the study. Be precise. After reading your method, your reader
should be able to replicate your experiment. But they should be able to do it wherever they are
(e.g., UCLA) so don't mention things like 200B. And you don't have to say everything, just
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everything important. As your text points out, Method sections are often subdivided into sections
on participants, materials, and procedures.

Participants How many were there? Can you provide any details that might give the reader a
better sense of who your sample was? (e.g. college students in an experimental psychology
course) Do you have any data on their age (mean, standard deviation, and range is often helpful)
or sex? If you don't, then just include the number of participants ("N")

Procedure As in the previous lab report, we dont really have enough materials here to
warrant a separate Materials section. You can describe the materials here.
Since we used a particular web-site to generate the data, that site should be listed.
Here is what you should describe in a logically organized manner:

the dual-task paradigm we used (mention the web-site)

your IVs
your DVs
your design - You can state this is a "2X2 (IV1 X IV2) within-subjects design". Obviously,
fill in the conditions your lab actually used for IV1 and IV2).
the parameters that you adjusted that were constant across conditions (state that the other
parameters were kept at default values.

**Be sure to include the units for the general parameters, the IVs and the DVs

The procedure should only describe the details of the study you are reporting. Do not describe
the work you did to develop the task (like trying out a number of different parameters to see how
they worked).

Results (approx 1 page)

In this section you will give descriptions of the findings that are relevant to your hypothesis. You
will be presenting the main effects and the interactions for each of your DVs. You will also
present the appropriate descriptive statistics.

It is very important that you understand that in the 2X2 ANOVA you are getting results for the
main effect of your first IV, the main effect of your 2nd IV and the interaction. If our IVs were
dot speed and font size:

Main effect 1 - Do participants perform better at a slower dot speed than at a faster dot
speed
Main effect 2 - Do participants perform better at a larger font size than a smaller font size
Interaction - Does the effect of font size depend on dot speed? (Or however you are
thinking a bout the intera ction.)
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How to Present the 2X2 ANOVA Results

When you are getting ready to write up your results, make sure you have your SPSS
output with the "Tests of Within Subjects Contrasts" for each of your DVs. Here you
can find the following:
For Main Effect 1 - F Statistic, degrees of freedom and p value ("sig")
For Main Effect 2 - F Statistic, degrees of freedom and p value ("sig")
For Interaction - F Statistic, degrees of freedom and p value ("sig")

When presenting the main effects, you will also need the means and standard
deviations for each level of each of your IVs (i.e., the mean for tracking error for slow
dot speed and fast dot speed). If you did not have time to obtain this in lab, your TA
will provide you with these values.

Once you have all the data together, you can write the results section. Follow
the examples below for format. You should copy the same kind of wording that
is used in the examples. Example 1 applies if you do not have a significant
interaction. Example 2 applies if you do have a significant interaction.
Remember that you will present results from three 2X2 ANOVAs, one for each
of your three DVs. The illustrative examples below are taken from
http://www.psych.uw.edu/writingcenter/writingguides/pdf/stats.pdf

Remember, you should follow the format for how to present the F statistics exactly.
Please refer to the Dual Task Lab/Week 3" Handout for a refresher on how to
interpret your SPSS output. You should have one paragraph for each of your DVs

EXAMPLE 1 - Reporting results of major tests in factorial ANOVA; non-

significant interaction:
**For this example, participants read a message about a topic for which they had a
strong attitude. The message was either slightly different or very different from their
own opinion. The author was either high or low in expertise. After reading the
message, participants reported their attitude.

Attitude change scores were subjected to a two-way analysis of variance

having two levels of message discrepancy (small, large) and two levels of
source expertise (high, low). All effects were statistically significant at the
.05 significance level.

The main effect of message discrepancy yielded an F ratio of F(1, 24) =

44.4, p < .001, indicating that the mean change score was significantly
greater for large-discrepancy messages (M = 4.78, SD = 1.99) than for
small - discrepancy messages (M = 2.17, SD = 1.25). The main effect of
source expertise yielded an F ratio of F(1, 24) = 25.4, p < .01, indicating
that the mean change score was significantly higher in the high - expertise
message source (M = 5.49, SD = 2.25) than in the low - expertise message
source (M = 0.88, SD = 1.21). The interaction effect was non -significant,
F(1, 24) = 1.22, p > .05.
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EXAMPLE 2 - Reporting results of major tests in factorial ANOVA;
significant interaction:
**For this example, waitresses in a restaurant would either touch the arm of
the patron as they gave them the check or not touch the arm of the patron.
Patrons were both male and female. The researchers recorded the percent tip
paid.

A two-way analysis of variance yielded a main effect for the diners

gender, F(1, 108) = 3.93, p < .05, such that the average tip was
significantly higher for men (M= 15.3%, SD = 4.44) than for women
(M = 12.6%, SD = 6.18). The main effect of touch was non-
significant, F(1, 108) = 2.24, p > .05. However, the interaction effect
was significant, F(1, 108) = 5.55, p < .05, indicating that the gender
effect was greater in the touch condition than in the non-touch
condition.

Graphs and Tables

Graphs and tables are an important part of the presentation in a lab report. Data from
experimental manipulations like those you conducted are often presented graphically. You
should include one graph for each of your DVs.. Refer to the handout on creating graphs that was
distributed in class for assistance in creating good graphs It is extremely important that your
graphs be clear, appropriately labeled and referred to in your Results section. You can include
them within the text of your document, or if you prefer, put them at the end. Instead of a title,
each graph should include a Figure number and a very brief explanatory caption (below the
figure). For example, "Figure 1 - Tracking error as a function of dot speed and font size"

Discussion (approx 1 page)

You will have a separate discussion section to summarize your findings and discuss the
implications. Consider questions like the following: Did your findings support your hypotheses?
Are there alternative ways to interpret your results? If no significant results were found, what
does that mean? Were there any confounds? Were there problems with the characteristics of the
sample? How could this study be improved if conducted again? How could this study be extended
in future research (taken in new directions?) What, if any, practical applications are there?

References
Be sure to cite appropriately within the text and be sure to format your references appropriately.
BE SURE TO INCLUDE THE EXPERIMENT WEB SITE. As noted above, remember that the
Purdue O.W.L. web site is the final word on formatting.

Grading

This lab report is worth 10% of your course grade. The lab report will be graded out of 100
points. You will receive points for each component of the lab report as follows:

Title Page and Abstract 10 points

Introduction 15 points
Methods 15 points
Results 15 points
Discussion 15 points
References/Citations 10 points
Figures 10 points
Grammar, Spelling, Format 10 points