Hi, I need help with my methods section of my research. I have included alot of information regarding what needs to be put as well as the rubric and what needs to be included in a methods section. Thank you!
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METHOD SAMPLE
Method (LEVEL 1 HEADING)
The Method section comes after the title page, abstract, and introduction. The Method
section is the section in which you describe the details of how your study was conducted. You
haven’t conducted your study yet, but go ahead and write in the past tense because that is the
tense you will eventually need (e.g., “Participants completed a questionnaire..”).
How Much Detail? (LEVEL 2 HEADING)
You should provide sufficient detail so that your study could be replicated in all its
essential characteristics. However, you should omit aspects of the study that are unlikely to be
important to the outcome: exact room temperature, color of the room, or details about the
furniture can be omitted (assuming they are not independent variables). In addition, you should
not repeat information that was presented in another section. If you describe the questionnaire in
the Materials subsection, do not also describe it in the Procedure subsection.
General Advice on Style (LEVEL 2 HEADING)
Labels (LEVEL 3 HEADING)
Come up with labels for your independent and dependent variables and the levels of the
independent variable that are concise and easy to understand. DO NOT refer to the two levels of
your independent variable as “Group A” and “Group B” or “Group 1” and “Group 2.” Nobody
will ever remember which one is which. Instead, call them “the $1 condition” and “the $20
condition” or the “low anxiety group” and the “high anxiety group.” Make your label stick
closely to how you are measuring or manipulating your variable: the label “I.Q. score” would be
preferred to the more abstract label of “intelligence.”
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Numbers (LEVEL 3 HEADING)
APA style requires that numbers that appear at the beginning of a sentence be spelled out:
“Fifty percent of the participants…” rather than “50% of the participants.” In addition, all
numbers less than 10 should also be spelled out: “…nine…” The Method section has three main
subsections: Participants, Materials, and Procedure. Each subsection has its own heading, the
formatting of which is described in the APA Publication Manual (6th edition) on pages 29-32
and demonstrated on pages 44 and 54.
Formatting Headings (LEVEL 2 HEADING)
The headings are the words that are offset from the text that organize the text into
sections. You can read about the official guidance on heading formatting on pages 62-63 of the
6th edition APA manual. In general, the rules for headings are to put words in bold and to either
center them (for major sections: abstract, intro, methods, results, discussion, references) or make
them flush-left (for subsections, like within the Method section).
Participants (LEVEL 2 HEADING)
(NOTE: DO NOT ACTUALLY USE THE NUMBERING BELOW – THIS IS JUST TO
SIMPLIFY THE LIST OF WHAT YOU SHOULD INCLUDE IN PARAGRAPH FORMAT)
1. How many?
2. How were they selected (e.g., from introductory psychology courses, acquaintances of
the experimenter, etc.)? If you got participants from different sources, describe the percentage
obtained from each.
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3. Essential demographics information: percentage female (or male), age range and
average age, and the percentage of participants belonging to various ethnic groups (include at
least “Caucasian,” “African American,” “Latino/a,” “East Asian,” “Indian,” “Native American,”
and “other”). Note: names of ethnic groups are proper nouns and should be capitalized. The
proper form for using a label to describe a group of people is to use the label that is generally
approved by that group.
4. If you did not use data from some of the participants, you must explain the rule you
used to exclude the data: error rates above ___%, participant expressed suspicion, etc. You will
not know these until you conduct your study. If no data was excluded, you do not have to
mention anything.
Note: An error commonly made by beginning researchers is to state that participants were
obtained “randomly.” Do not use the term “random” lightly: it implies that every member of the
population had an equal probability of inclusion in your study. Unless you went to great pains to
obtain a truly random sample, do not use the word “random.” You could say that you obtained a
“convenience sample,” or you could simply not mention the sampling procedure you used and
the reader will assume that it was a convenience sample.
Materials (LEVEL 2 HEADING)
In this section, you should provide a description of any equipment or physical settings
that were important aspects of your study. If you are conducting a study that involves precise
measurement, you will want to be very specific about the equipment you used. For example, if
you are measuring how quickly a participant responds to a stimulus on a computer screen, you
would need to describe the software you are using, important characteristics of the monitor (size,
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METHOD SAMPLE
refresh rate, contrast, etc.), and distance of participants from the monitor. Do not bother
describing the size of the room you used or its general layout unless these are important to the
study.
Questionnaires (LEVEL 3 HEADING)
One of the most common elements of the Materials subsection is a questionnaire. If you
used a questionnaire in your study, you will want to describe:
1. The source of the questionnaire (if it was originally created by someone else, you
should cite the original source and include it in your References section)
2. What construct the questionnaire is designed to measure: “…designed to measure the
degree to which people believe in government conspiracies.” Note: your questionnaire is not
designed to test your hypothesis, it is designed to measure a variable. For example, your
questionnaire cannot directly measure “whether men and women differ in their attitudes toward
gun control.” That’s what your study might be designed to test, but the questionnaire in that
study would only measure attitudes toward gun control.
3. The number of items in your questionnaire
4. One to three sample items. If you are creating a new questionnaire, place the full set of
items in an Appendix and refer the reader to the Appendix: “(see Appendix for complete list of
questionnaire items).”. An Appendix would appear after the References section but before any
Figures or Tables.
5. Evidence that the questionnaire is reliable and valid. This includes any reliability
estimates (e.g., Cronbach’s alpha, test-retest reliability) that might be available from previous
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research. Occasionally, researchers will put the reliability that they obtain in the present study
into the Method section rather than the Results section. If you are creating the questionnaire
yourself, discuss how you are guaranteeing construct validity.
Procedure (LEVEL 2 HEADING)
In the procedure section, the researcher provides a step-by-step description of the
participants’ experience. Do not describe any data analysis or other actions taken by the
researcher that do not directly involve the participants themselves. Some common elements in
the Procedure section include:
1. Instructions to participants. What were they told the study was about? “Participants
were told that the study was designed to explore the first impressions people form when they see
a picture of someone.”
2. Informed consent. Did the researcher obtain informed consent? Was any deception
used? Were participants informed about the confidentiality of any sensitive information?
3.Assignment to conditions. How was this done? Were participants randomly assigned?
Did you use matching? Did participants assign themselves to levels of the independent variable?
4.Experimental manipulations. How were participants treated differently across
conditions? Be careful not to duplicate information you have already presented in the Materials
section. For example, if you’ve already described a high-fear video and a low-fear video, do not
describe them again here. Instead, assume that the reader will remember the labels you
introduced in the Materials section and simply state that participants watched either the high-fear
or the low-fear video.
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METHOD SAMPLE
5. Measurements. Describe the format, time, place, and personnel who collected the data.
“The authors went door to door in a residence hall between 7pm and 10pm to solicit participants,
who generally completed the questionnaire within 10 minutes.”
6. Experimenter bias. If the researcher or someone else who knew the hypothesis
collected the data, how did you reduce the possibility of experimenter bias?
7. Debriefing. Were participants debriefed? Were they given a written debriefing or did
the researcher conduct an oral debriefing?
8. Dismissal. This is a concise way to conclude the Procedure section, e.g., “Participants
were given a written debriefing, thanked for their participation, and were dismissed.”
Method Section: Evaluation Criteria (5 points)
Name: __________________________________
(1) APA format:
.5 point
• Section label called “Method” centered, 12-pt font, bold
• Subheadings organized correctly (Participants, Measures,
Procedure) with the correct format (bold, uppercase
and lowercase letters, left aligned, no period)
• 1-inch margins, double-spaced, no skipped lines ANYWHERE, 2-3 pages
(2) Participants subsection:
.75 point
• Clear description of participants:
.25 point
o Demographic breakdown of sample (age, gender, race, ethnicity,
geographic location, clinical/non-clinical, total number)
o Other relevant important characteristics
• Participant recruitment process:
.25 point
• Participant selection process/why this sample:
.25 point
o Inclusion / Exclusion criteria
Yes/No
Yes/No
Yes/No
Yes/No
Yes/No
Yes/No
(3) Measures (or Materials) subsection: 1.5 points (0.25 points per bullet)
For each survey/questionnaire/interview you should include:
Yes/No
• Exact name of questionnaire and who created it (citation!)
Yes/No
• State what it is designed to measure and report on reliability and validity
Yes/No
• How many questions/items are on measure
Yes/No
• How the questions/items are worded and rated (if questionnaire/survey) (e.g., Likert scale, openended)
Yes/No
• Give an example(s) of a question(s)
Yes/No
For other materials:
• Detailed description any other materials that are used in your study
Yes/No
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
(4) Procedure subsection: 1.25 points (0.25 points per bullet)
• Description of the research design and the conditions/groups under study
Yes/No
(including statements of IV’s and DV’s and other variables, or correlational variables)
• Describe how people were assigned/selected into groups
Yes/No
(i.e., random assignment, specific attribute)
• Describe the conditions and/or data collection procedures,
Yes/No
as well as control procedures you put in place
• Describe ALL participants did, including instructions, in chronological order! Yes/No
• Make clear where the study occurs (school, lab) and describe the setting
Yes/No
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
(5) Clarity of Method Section (including operational definitions of all variables): 1point
Yes/No
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
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Formatting
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