Psychology laboratory report Coursework Help
Section A: The 2000 word laboratory report
Title: You will develop your own title based on the attitude that you chose to measure and the groups that you chose to compare. The title should be concise and informative. It should reflect the main aim and design of the study.
Word count: 2,000 words (this excludes references, direct quotes, information in tables or graphs, titles and labels, and appendices).
Topic: It is important that you pick a topic which interests you but also one which is ethically appropriate. You should not choose to study sensitive topics which may offend participants, for example, it is not appropriate to ask people about their own sexual or illegal behaviour. You may also want to avoid topics which participants may find upsetting, for example child abuse/paedophilia and sexual assault. Successful past projects have included comparing males’ and females’ attitudes towards body image, health behaviours such as exercise and dieting and risk behaviours such as smoking. In addition, students have also explored gender differences in fear of crime and the importance of attractiveness in mate/friend selection.
Working as a group: A successful group project requires good group communication and equal effort from all group members. If you decide to work in a group you must ensure that you stay in touch with your group members, attend all group meetings, contribute to group discussions, contribute to data collection and meet group deadlines. Any group who feels like a member is not contributing should contact their workshop tutor to discuss the matter. Although you can design your questionnaire and collect data as a group, your lab report is an individual piece of work which must be completed independently of other members of your group.
What you have to do
- Attend the Coursework lecture for a detailed overview of the coursework project.
- Attend Workshop 4. In this workshop you will choose your group, brainstorm potential ideas for questionnaire topics, conduct a literature search to find existing literature on your chosen topic(s), finalise your research question, make a timetable of activities for questionnaire completion and data collection, and identify resources to help you design your questionnaire.
- Attend Lecture 5 (Questionnaire Design) and Workshop 5. In this workshop you will design the questions for your questionnaire, create a scoring sheet, create a Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form for your participants, and decide who will collect what data.
- Get your questionnaire approved by your workshop tutor. Your supervisor must approve your questionnaire before you collect data.
- Collect the data.
- Attend Lecture 6, which will explain Cronbach’s alpha, and Workshop 6, and bring all data to the workshop. In this workshop you will score all questionnaires, enter the data into SPSS, and calculate descriptive statistics for the ages and gender of your participants.
- Write a 2000 word scientific report detailing your findings in the style of the American Psychology Association (APA).
The work must adopt the following structure:
Abstract: This is a brief summary of the whole report – 150 to 200 words. It should include a one or two sentence summary of each section of the report
Introduction: This introduces the area you are studying and your particular experiment. It is mainly a critical account of related studies. It will also include your aims and hypothesis.
Method: Your method section is there to enable other psychologists to understand and replicate what you did.
Results: This is a summary of your analysed data – not all the raw data. It usually includes descriptive statistics, tables of figures displaying data, and the findings of statistical analysis.
Discussion: This section explains your findings to the reader. You should relate your findings to previous research and theory in the area.
References: A full alphabetical list of all references cited in the report should be given. References should be given in APA format.
Appendix: Only include an appendix if you believe it is necessary.
Further help and support on writing this element of the coursework will be given in lecture 4, 5 and 6. You will also find further help, including guides on writing a lab report, referencing help and an example 1st class lab report under the “coursework” tab on BB. Finally, the final workshop of the module will be dedicated to coursework support.
The work will be marked according to the school marking scheme which can be found on the community Canvas site
Section B:
Study description: “Face to face CBT therapy is effective but expensive. A study was therefore conducted to see whether more a non-face-to-face version of CBT would be effective in treating depression. 90 participants with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder were recruited. Each participant was allocated to one of the following 3 intervention conditions: 1) usual mediation with no therapy, 2) usual medication with online CBT, or 3) usual medication with face to face CBT. Each intervention lasted for 1 month. At the end of the month participants depression levels were assessed using a questionnaire. A high score indicates better mood and less depression. It was hypothesised that online and face to face CBT would both improve mood and lessen depression in comparison with no therapy.”
