THE RESEARCH REPORT
2. MAIN SECTIONS OF THE REPORT
2.1. THE TITLE PAGE
The format of the title page in APA style is illustrated below. The title page should have the title of the paper centered on the page. The Short Title and page number appear at the top right of the title page. The
student's name appears one double-space below the title. The institutional affiliation (name of the college or university for which the paper has been written) appears one double-space below student name. If there is no institutional affiliation, the city and state or city and country of the author should be identified instead (See figure 1).
Figure 1. Appearance of title page recommended by APA
Top margin (2.54 cm)
Bottom margin (2.54 cm)
Left margin (2.54 cm) Right margin (2.54 cm)
1
Page number Short title
Perceived Control
Running head
PERCEIVED CONTROL AND WELLBEING
Printable area
Perceived Control of States and Wellbeing
title
Author's name
Hasan Taghavi Aliabadi
Torqabah University
Author's affiliation
T ly capture the
Name: Underneath the title you type your name (usually your first
Affiliation: Below your name put the name of your university or
Running head: The title also includes a 'running head'. It should be all
Page header: On the top right-hand side of every page of the paper (or
2.2. ABSTRACT
sented on a page of its own, which is usually the
a) the question that was addressed d) an overview of the main findings
method of the study
itle: The title of your report should clearly and concise
essence of your study (in 10 to 12 words). This is not easy to do! Drop any words that are not useful (e.g., 'a study of . . .'). Don't include any abbreviations in the title. The title is positioned in the centre of the page (vertically and horizontally). The first letter of the main words is capitalized.
name, initial and then surname). This is also centered.
organization. If there is no institutional affiliation, the city and state or city and country of the author should be identified instead. In PhD dissertations and masters' theses, the authors may include other pieces of information like the name of the supervisor, a descriptive phrase showing why the report is being submitted, and the date of submission.
capitals and no more than 50 characters in length (letters, spaces, punctuation included).
report) a few words of the title (usually the running head) will appear. This short title is the short form of the main title that appears close to the page number. Five spaces along is the page number. You do not need to type these on every page yourself: use the 'header and footer' function of your word processor as discussed in chapter 1, and they will appear automatically on each page.
The abstract is pre
second page of the report, using the heading 'Abstract', which is centered. The first line is not indented. It provides a brief summary (120 words or less) of the main elements of your report. It is important that the abstract describe the following:
b) the sample used c) the experimental
Type the abstract as a single parag
paragraph indentation. To help you get at is required in the
Figure 2. Appearance of abstract page recommended by APA
raph in block format (i.e., without an idea of wh
abstract, have a look through journals published in your topic area. Collect examples of good concise abstracts to use as role models. Figure 2 shows the appearance of an abstract page:
Abstract
Recent studies suggest that perceived control of the emotional impact of a stressful event may be just as important as the perception that control of the event is possible. This study explored the importance of perceived control of internal states in psychological wellbeing, using a general community sample
(N=439). Scores on the Perceived Control of Internal States Scale (PCOISS) showed moderate, positive correlations with a number of wellbeing measures. The results of this study provide confirmation of previous research findings concerning the important role that perceived control plays in psychological wellbeing.
Page 3 is the beginning of the main body of the paper or research report. The title of the paper appears (centered) one double-space below the Short Title. The first line of the body of the paper appears one double- space below the title. The first part of the main body of the paper or report is the introduction (See figure 3 below).
Figure 3. Appearance of first body page recommended by APA
Perceived Control 3
Perceived Control of States and Wellbeing
One of the key developments within psychological rature on control has been the growing recogni the multidimensional nature of the control construct. rly studies defined control only in terms of the ailability of the means to influence an aversive uation or outcome (Pervin, 1963). Studies over the
t fifteen years, however, have explored . . . .
lite tion of Ea av sit las Method Participants
The sample consisted of 439 adults, ranging in age from 18 to 82 years (M=37, SD=13). Forty-two per cent of the sample were males, 58 per cent were females. Fifty eight per cent of participants were either married or living with a partner, 24% were single . . . .
2.3. INTRODUCTION
As mentioned earlier, the main text of the report begins on page 3 with
lines of all paragraphs are indented 5-7 spaces (roughly one tab if you are using a word processor). The introduction should include at least three points:
(a) Statement of the problem
The in ssed and
reviews the literature
citation masters' theses and Ph r as a separate section or even a separate chapter—usually chapter two. In the closing section e study is presented and the specific questions and hypotheses are stated.
2.4. METHOD
The method section is not presente
the end of the introduction—or the review of literature where it is presented as a separate section (See figures 3 above). It describes exactly how your study was conducted, with sufficient detail so that another researcher could repeat the study. The m ber
of subs ed. The
first let st important subsections of "m
procedu
Participants:
the introduction. Unlike the other sections of the report, it is not labeled 'Introduction'. Instead the full title of the report is presented at the top, centered, with all main words capitalized (See figure 3 above). The first
(b) Review of the literature
(c) Statement of the study purpose troduction indicates the problem that is to be addre
relevant to the topic of your research (using s where appropriate). In some works, including
D dissertations, however, the literature will appea
of the introduction, the purpose or rationale of th
d on a new page, but flows on from
ethod is divided into a num ections. These subsections are flushed left and underlin ter of each of these subsections is capitalized. The mo
ethod" are (a) participants, (b) materials, and (c) re.
This section (usually headed Participants) contains a brief description of the subjects or respondents included in your study. For studies involving humans you should report the major demographic—
h ducation
level, etc.) giving both numbers and percentages of subjects in each males), and mean and standard deviations for uman-related—characteristics of the sample (age, sex, race, e
continuous variables. Give the total number of subjects and the number of cases in each experimental condition. You can obtain this information by running Frequencies SPSS on these variables. Also indicate any 'drop-outs' or subjects that did not complete participation in the study (See figure 3 above).
living with a partn
Perceived Control 4 er, 24% were single . . . .
Materials
Each questionnaire booklet contained a number of validated scales and demographic questions. Respondents were asked to provide details of their gender, age, marital
educational level. Details of the scales included in status and
the booklet are provided below.
Perceived Control of Internal States Scale (PCOISS: Pallant, in press). The PCOISS1 is an eighteen-item scale designed to measure respondents' perceptions of their ability to control their internal states and to moderate the impact of aversive events on their emotions, thoughts and physical wellbeing. According to the author (Pallant, in press) the PCOISS has good internal consistency (Cronbach alpha=.92) and adequate test-retest reliability (.89 over a two-week period . . . .
Apparatus or materials: In a study involving a laboratory experiment
you describe the equipment used under the left-aligned heading Apparatus. You also describe the tools to measure the dependent variable. If a survey or questionnaire design was used, you describe the scales or questionnaires used under the flush-left heading Materials. Details of the reliability and validity of the scales would be reported, along with the reliability and validity of the instruments obtained in the current study. See figure 4 above for an understanding of how the Materials section should be presented. For your better understanding of the figure, the last line of figure 3 has been repeated in figure 4 so that you can see the position of the Materials subheading relative to the previous subheading—Participants.
Figure 5. Appearance of procedure section recommended by APA
and adequate test-retest reliability (.89 over a two- week period . . . .
Procedure
The students enrolled in a research subject at Torqabah University were asked to distribute questionnaire booklets to their friends, family and acquaintances.
Each potential participant was provided with a package containing an explanatory statement, the questionnaire booklet and a reply-paid envelope. Participation in the study was voluntary and all questionnaires were completed anonymously . . .
Procedure: In this section you describe the design of the study, the
procedures used to assign subjects to the various conditions or sample groups, and the techniques used to manipulate the independent variable. In a survey design you describe the sampling procedure and how the questionnaires were distributed and collected. Sufficient detail should be provided to enable another researcher to replicate your study. See figure 5 above for an understanding of how the Procedure section should be presented. The last line of figure 4 has been repeated in figure 5 so that you can see the position of the Procedure relative to the previous subheading—Materials.
2.5. RESULTS
In this section you would describe your and he results of the descriptive and inferential techniques used. This section should be il that the reader can understand what was done. It needs to be well structured, perhaps following the order of the hypotheses that were specified in the introduction. Remind the reader of each hypothesis, describe the statistical analysis used and report the results. Do not attempt to explain the results (exc nal analysis to explore the s should be saved for th
When reporting the results of statistical analyses you need to include the name of the test (e.g., independent samples t-test), the value obtained, the degree e probability level, the effect size and the direction of th females). Where appropriate, you m
deviation a
Sometimes arly in table or graph Do not go overboard with graphs save these for dram
presenting igures must be referred to in the text and sufficient explanations provided to ensure that the reader can understand what is presented. There are some quite strict guidelines for the form
explanations presented in the previous chapter). Figure 6 below shows how you should report the results of your project.
data, the statistics used t
brief and to the point, but provide sufficient deta
ept where it is necessary to perform an additio outcome further)—the interpretation of result e discussion section.
s of freedom, th
e effect (e.g., were males higher or lower than
ay also need to report the mean, standard nd number of subjects for each group.
the results of analyses can be presented more cle format, rather than described in a paragraph.
atic effect (e.g., when significant ANOVA interactions). All tables and f
ded by APA Figure 6. Appearance of results section recommen
questionnaires were completed anonymously . . . .
Results
Perceived Control 6
Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were
erate to strong correlations, in calculated to explore the relationship between scores on the PCOISS and a number of measures of wellbeing (Satisfaction with Life scale, Positive Affect scale. Negative Affect scale, Perceived Stress scale). Preliminary analyses revealed no violations of the
assumptions of normality, linearity and homoscedasticity. The PCOISS showed mod
the expected direction, with each of the wellbeing measures (see Table 1).
The strongest correlation for the PCOISS was with the
In a thesis or dissertation,
table 1 is inserted here
Perceived Stress scale: r(425) = -0.58, p.001.
The PCOISS showed a similar pattern of correlations with measures of wellbeing . . . .
When submitting a research report for publication the tables and figures are presented at the end of the manuscript; some journals may want the contributors to present the tables and figures in the main body of the report, though. For a thesis or dissertation, however, the tables are incorporated in the main body of the report. You should check with your supervisor concerning the specific requirem
2.6. DISCUSSION
In the discussion section you att ntegrate or pull together all the various sections of your report. This involves a summary of the main findings of lts, in light of you
PA
ents for your report.
empt to i
the study, followed by your interpretation of these resu r literature review presented earlier in your report.
Perceived Control 7 with measures of wellbeing . . . .
Discussion
The results of this study provide confirmatio previous research fin
n of dings concerning the important le that perceived control plays in psychological
h high levels of perceived rnal states reported higher levels
erceived stress. The respondents also . . . .
ro
wellbeing.
Respondents wit control of their inte
of life satisfaction and positive affect, and lower levels of negative affect and p
According to the APA publication manual, you are "free to examine, interpret, and qualify the results, as well as to draw inferences from them" (the APA publications manual, p. 18). You should compare your results with previous research and suggest reasons for any differences found. You should consider the broader implications of your findings, discuss any limitations or weaknesses of the study, and make suggestions for future research.
entry; the second and succeeding lines in references should be typed flush to the left-hand margin.
It is understood that when the docum jour al, references will appear in a hanging-indent f
including I the hanging-indent format for theses and dissertations. The references in the example page below have italicized titles. Although the technological reasons for an insistence on underlining