7/23/2019 How to Write a Practical Report

1/15

How to write a practical report

7/23/2019 How to Write a Practical Report

2/15

Purpose

Communicate research in a clear, systematic andstandardised way.

Why did I do it - Justification, rationale, contributionto knowledge, hypotheses

How did I do it enough detail of methodology andprocedure to allow exact replication

What did I find describe the results

So what explanation and conclusions

7/23/2019 How to Write a Practical Report

3/15

How to write a practical report!tructure see hbk, pp. "#$%&

'itle

(bstract write last&

)ntroduction literature re*iew, rationale and +ustification forhypothesis, state hypothesis

ethods participants, design, materials, procedure, ethics

esults descripti*einferential statistics and tablesgraphs

/iscussion explain results, link back to intro, limitation, futureresearch, implications of your findings

eferences

(ppendix

7/23/2019 How to Write a Practical Report

4/15

'itle Page

!ee hbk for layout and info to include

0or the title itself be specific and indicati*e of what study is

about

ake mention of the *ariables your are assessing

!pecify your *ariables

1ot too long no more than "" words

7/23/2019 How to Write a Practical Report

5/15

(bstract

2hat is the study all about - summary of

whole report

3n a*erage "45-#55 words Pro*ide the reader with the most important

details. )deally, the abstract enables the

reader to decide whether he or she should

read the article.

6asically, should includes a line on each

section of your report

7/23/2019 How to Write a Practical Report

6/15

)ntro7 lit re*iew

( good introduction addresses two 8uestions7

". 2hat has been done in this area by other researchers9

#. 2hat is the point of the present study9

)ntroduce key terms and how they are defined

6ackground literature general theory

!upport theories with mention of specific studies, methods andfindings and their conclusions evaluate them, critically

examine them (what was good, what could be improved) 0inish with your aims hypothesis&, +ustify why you think this

referring back to the research you +ust mentioned.

7/23/2019 How to Write a Practical Report

7/15

ethod

!o that someone else can replicate the experiment

Participants - number, population, recruitment method,usually gender ratio and age range&

/esign what are your *ariables, ): and /:9 Correlational,between or within-ppt design9 ixed factorial& design9

aterials describe the tasks used, format of each, length,and gi*e examples of 8uestionsitems. How were theyscored possible range of scores&9 eference task if designed

by someone else. eference copy in appendix ifappropriate.

procedure exactly what we did, gi*e details ofinstructions, time limits, instructionsdebriefing.Presentation of tasks, counterbalancing. easurement,

recording of scores.

7/23/2019 How to Write a Practical Report

8/15

esults7 data screening

/escribe any data screening that took place, i.e.

remo*ing scores and why.

Can we treat the data as parametric9 Pro*ide e*idence 1ormality tests, skew, kurtosis

;xtreme scores

Homogeneity of *ariance

Can present histograms etc. in appendix and refer tothem

Present skew, kurtosis etc. in summary table

7/23/2019 How to Write a Practical Report

9/15

esults7 descripti*e trends

Presenting measures of central tendency and dispersion i.e.mean and !/& in summary table, i.e.

'able "7 ean !/& for