4.2.3.1 - Reporting psychological investigations

Why reports have sections

Psychological investigations do not end when the data have been collected. The researcher has to communicate the study in a clear, standardised form so that other people can understand what was done, judge the quality of the evidence and, where appropriate, repeat the investigation.

AQA requires you to know six sections of a scientific report:

The order matters because each section answers a different reader question:

This structure is not decoration. It supports scientific communication. A detailed method helps another researcher repeat the procedure. A clear results section lets the reader inspect the evidence before accepting the researcher's interpretation. Referencing allows the reader to find the previous studies or theories being discussed. In exam answers, the key skill is usually to match information to the correct section and explain why it belongs there.

Abstract and introduction

The abstract and introduction are easy to mix up because they both appear near the start of a report. They do different jobs.

An abstract is like a compressed version of the entire report. It is normally short, with the precise word limit set by the report or journal requirements. A reader should be able to read the abstract and know the basic purpose of the study, how it was carried out, the main finding and the broad conclusion.

A strong abstract usually includes:

• the aim or research question
• a very brief method, such as the design, sample or task
• the main result, not every raw score
• the conclusion or implication

Although the abstract appears first, it is often written last because the researcher needs to know what the study found before summarising it accurately.

For example, a fictional classroom investigation might be summarised: “We investigated whether background noise affects word recall. Forty students were allocated to quiet or cafe-noise conditions and recalled a word list. Mean recall was lower with noise. The pattern is consistent with auditory distraction, although the narrow sample limits generalisation.” The four sentences give the aim, method, finding and qualified conclusion. An introduction would instead explain the background and rationale; it would not report the completed study's main result as its purpose.

The introduction is not just a long abstract. Its job is to build the argument for the study. It normally starts broad, then narrows:

For example, if a student investigates whether background noise affects short-term memory, the introduction might begin with research on working memory, then review studies on auditory distraction, then explain why sixth-form revision contexts are worth studying, and finally state a directional hypothesis about recall scores in quiet and noisy conditions.

Exam trap: do not put the procedure in the introduction. A sentence such as "participants completed a 20-word recall task in silence or with cafe noise" belongs in the method. The introduction can briefly preview the study, but the detailed "what happened" belongs later.

Method: making the study replicable

A method section records what was done so that another researcher can understand and repeat the procedure.

The method section answers the question: "What exactly did the researcher do?" It should be practical, precise and written after the study has been carried out.

A detailed method matters because replication depends on it. If a report simply says "students did a memory test", another researcher would not know what age the students were, how many words they saw, how long they had to learn them, whether they worked alone, or how recall was scored. That makes the study difficult to repeat and difficult to evaluate.

A method section often includes these details:

In published reports, the method may be split into subheadings such as participants, design, materials and procedure. AQA exam answers do not usually require perfect formatting, but they do require you to understand the type of information that belongs there.

The method section should not contain a detailed interpretation of the results. "The noisy condition showed poorer recall because music overloaded working memory" belongs in the discussion. The method would simply describe how the noisy condition was created and how recall was measured.

Consider how a vague instruction becomes replicable. “Students heard some noise” does not identify the stimulus. A better report identifies the audio file or supplies it, the equipment, when it played, its controlled volume and which task was completed. Details must describe what actually happened, not an ideal procedure the author wishes had been used.

When a question gives you a scenario, make your method details specific to that scenario. If the study is about phone notifications and concentration, name the notification task, the concentration measure and the control condition. Generic statements such as "they should use participants and a procedure" are usually too thin.

Results: presenting findings without interpreting them

Results present the pattern in the collected data before the discussion explains its meaning.