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PSY 289 - Downtown - Psychology Research Methods (Bianchi): Publication Types

Publication types

PowerPoint for Library Session

Food Chain: The Psychological Literature

A Google Slides presentation

Empirical research report: Gratitude and young children

Nguyen, S. P., & Gordon, C. L. (2020). The Relationship Between Gratitude and Happiness in Young Children. Journal of Happiness Studies, 21(8), 2773–2787.

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Publications

A report of primary empirical research: (a single experiment)

Nguyen, S. P., & Gordon, C. L. (2020). The Relationship between gratitude and happiness in young children. Journal of Happiness Studies, 21(8), 2773–2787. https://go.openathens.net/redirector/pima.edu?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/relationship-between-gratitude-happiness-young/docview/2471921116/se-2?accountid=13194 Instructions for Paste and Spellcheck

What is Peer Review?

How to spot an empirical study

1. The title gives you clues. Read it carefully and try to understand its purpose.

2. Review the abstract

  • Look in the method section (in middle of the abstract)

  • Look for data that was gathered from participants/subjects (or at least data that was analyzed). This is essential.

3. Make sure the article is NOT a literature review or meta-analysis.

  • If it is one of these things, it will usually mention these words, or it might say "systematic review."
  • A "case study" is a kind of empirical paper, but it is not an empirical research report. Ask your instructor for guidance.

4. In the abstract’s method section: Does it talk about selecting studies or papers for analysis?

  • If so, it is not empirical. It is analytical.

 

Elements in an Empirical Study (and Four "Body Parts")

In APA style, empirical research reports usually contain these eight sections. The bullet points give you a sense of what they discuss.

Title of the article

Author and Institutional Affiliation

  • Samuel T. Brown. University of Arizona

Abstract                             See also "The Abstract" tab.

  • A summary of four essential sections: 
    • Introduction
    • Method
    • Results
    • Discussion

Keywords

  • Words and phrases that describe the content of the article.

 

Text or Body (Contains four "body parts")

  Introduction 

        Note: This section never has the heading "Introduction." It simply begins the article, with no heading.

  • The problem being studied: concept and importance

  • Literature review: what do previous studies tell us? Do they agree?

  • Purpose of the present study

  • Hypotheses

  • Research strategy and design (an overview)

  Method

  • How the study was conducted

    • ​Participants - their characteristics

    • Sampling: how representative participants were chosen

    • Variables studied: their operational definitions and measures

    • Research design and procedure

      • Experimental interventions (if any)

      • How results were collected

  • ​​​​​​​How the data was analyzed to test your hypothesis or answer your question.

  Results

  • Summary of the data 

  • Any deviations from the research plan

  • Results of statistical tests (or of other analyses)

  • A comparison of the hypothesis to the actual effect observed

  • Statistical significance and effect sizes

  Discussion

  • What can we conclude?

  • How confident are we?

  • How does this study fit with previous research?

  • Does this study help confirm an existing theory, or does it question the theory?

  • What new research should be done?

  • What are the strengths and limitations of this study?

References

  • All sources cited in the paper (with a few exceptions) will be fully identified here.
  • Nothing will be included that is not cited in the text.