Reflections on the Process of Writing an APA-Style Research Paper 

Rebecca M. Wood, Alexandra Hebert, Kristina Schultz, and Kristina Soultatos

The Class

•Psychology 361: The Psychology of Early Childhood

•Students: 90% education majors

The ObservationUse the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (Revised*) to evaluate the quality of a local pre-K program.

Goals:

Research skill: naturalistic observationEvaluate the quality of pre-KApply research about the importance of

pre-K to a real-life situation

*Harms, T., Clifford, R. M., & Cryer, D. (2005). Early childhood environment rating scale (Revised Ed.). New York: Teachers College Press.

The APA-Style Paper

•Abstract•Introduction•Method•Results•Discussion•Reference section•Table

The Pieces

• 1. Find two peer-reviewed articles regarding the importance of pre-K and summarize them.

Include an APA-style reference section and in-text citations (article assignment; 5/250 points)

• 2. Fix mistakes in the article assignment, include corrections in a memo to the instructor,

and use the article summaries to help build a complete introduction section. Also, make a

skeleton of the headings for the rest of the paper and include a corrected reference section (Draft 1; 22.5/250 points)

•3. Summarize ratings given by the student and his or her partner on the ECERS-R in an APA-style table (Draft 2; 22.5/250 points).

•4. Correct mistakes in the introduction section, headings, and references, and complete the paper (Final ECERS-R Paper; 50/250 points).

The Process• Student confusion about the assignments,

especially Draft 1.▫Sample paper distributed▫ Instructor’s questions: More samples? Format

of samples?

• Students’ inexperience with APA style▫Resources were given at the beginning of the

semester, with numerous examples▫ Instructor’s questions: How to effectively

teach APA-style? Anxiety management?

Discussion of student feedback

•Themes▫The feedback on writing did help some

students think about their writing and apply what they learned to other courses. The memo seemed to facilitate this.

▫Confusion over Draft 1▫APA-style is confusing ▫General anxiety▫Article assignment is low-stakes. Is it too

low stakes?