Psyco 104 Basic Biological Processes Help Psych home
Sec. A7, R 12:30 - 1:50 E-mail

 
 

Reading Reports of Empirical Studies

After presenting the results, the authors provide conclusions and implications in the Discussion section. The Discussion section should start with a summary of the most important results and then get into a discussion of how the results address the research questions. As you read the Discussion section of the published article, think about the following questions: 
  • What conclusions do the researchers draw from their results? 
  • Are the conclusions important? Why or why not? 
These questions will help you evaluate the overall "worth" of the research in terms of theory, applications, and/or relevance for understanding psychology. 


What conclusions do the researchers draw?  Are the conclusions important? Discussion Group
Discussion

Balch (1998) argued that the results support the accuracy-assessment hypothesis.  If students are helped to develop an accurate assessment of heir mastery - though a practice exam, for example - they will modify their study habits and therefore perform better on the final exam.

He further argued that his findings that students did seem to have attended to the review-exam task indicates that the final exam differences cannot be explained merely according to a levels-of-processing hypothesis.   Balch also supports his rejection of the levels-of-proccessing hypothesis by arguing that the sample-exam items were different and therefore the students did not learn anything new by taking the practice test.

Balch concluded with an implication regarding the usefulness of providing students with access to "old" exams.  The Department of Psychology at the University of Alberta does not provide the Exam Registry with old exams because many exams contain items from the test banks that accompany the texts.  These items are copyrighted and therefore cannot be resold by the Exam Registry.

read.gif (919 bytes)   Reading the Research Questions to Consider
  Title Abstract Introduction Method Results Discussion References