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

 
 

Reading Reports of Empirical Studies

The Method section is a detailed description of exactly how the study was conducted. The detail is important so the reader can determine the appropriateness of the method for answering the scientific questions. It is also important for another researcher to be able to replicate the study. This section reads a lot like a recipe. The following questions will help you evaluate the method: 
  • Who are the participants in the study? 
  • Are the participants appropriate for the study? 
  • What is the research design? 
  • Is the design appropriate for the research question(s)? 
  • What are the measures? 
  • Are the measures appropriate for addressing the research question(s)? 
  • What ethical considerations are important to address? Are they all addressed in the article? 
These questions are a mix of fact-finding questions and critical thinking questions. The Method section contains a lot of scientific jargon and it is essential to understand exactly what was done in order to evaluate whether it was done "right". Read the Method section in the article then work through the summary and questions below. 

Who are the participants in the study?  Are the participants appropriate for the study? self-test

What is the research design?  Is the design appropriate for the research question(s)? self-test

What are the measures?  Are the measures appropriate for addressing the research question(s)? self-test

What ethical considerations are important to address? Are they all addressed in the article? self-test
Method

Participants

Participants were students in Balch's introductory psychology class who volunteered; close to 80% of the class volunteered for the research.  Students who volunteered received 3 points of extra credit.

Volunteers were ranked in terms of their performance to date, paired according to rank, and then each member of a pair was randomly assigned to either the practice-exam or the review-exam group.

Materials

The sample exam was a 25-item multiple choice test with items taken from the test bank.  None of the sample exam items were on the final exam.

Procedure

Students in the practice-exam group completed the sample exam, scored their exam, and checked their grades for the exam.  Students in the review-exam group were given the sample exam questions with correct answers and rated each question in terms of how much they expected a similar question to be on the final exam.

Both groups took a 50-item final exam a week later and then rated how helpful they felt the sample exam was in their preparation for the final.
read.gif (919 bytes)   Reading the Research Questions to Consider
  Title Abstract Introduction Method Results Discussion References