GUIDE TO WRITING YOUR

STAGE 2 PSYCHOLOGY
INVESTIGATION
Assessment Type: Layout (pages)
Investigation Practical Report
15% 1. Title Page

2. Proposal (group)
Part 1 - Collaborative Component
3. Introduction
Proposal: word count 250
maximum
4. Results (group)

Part 2 – Individual Component

5. Discussion

Report: 1,500 words 6. Conclusion

(excluding the proposal)
7. Bibliography
Page 1: Title Page
o Needs to include your name, SACE ID, Title of investigation and your hypothesis.

Page 2: Group Proposal

o 250 words max
o Place your hypothesis in italics as a sub heading of your proposal.
o This is written as if the research has not been conducted yet.
What to write in the Proposal
- Outline of the issue being investigated (you can include any background research here)
- Include the research question your group have chosen to focus on.
- Include the hypothesis being tested and outline the independent and dependent variables.
- Explanation of Research design to be used and how/why.
- Explanation of Research method to be used- include the name of the data sheet used.
- Explain how the data will be assessed and displayed (graph, mean, median, x and y axis etc.)
- Include a word count: at the bottom of the proposal

Page 3: Individual Introduction

o Begin with some research on the topic you have chosen to focus on, this should provide some
background as to why the hypothesis was chosen.
o Include the hypothesis from your proposal
o Write a brief explanation as to how the data was obtained in the research program and explain
what the data should show if your hypothesis was to be supported.
o This will be similar to your proposal but should not be the same.

Page 4: Results Section

o Sub title ‘Results’
o Your group will need to calculate the mean, median or standard deviation to graph (do not need to
do all of these! It is up to your group)
o Graph your results and display graph effectively. Make sure you label axis correctly ad title your
graph. Use colours to distinguish groups. ( do not use more than two decimal places)
o Use the correct scale for your graph (min and max scores of the data collected)
o Include a sentence under your graph/graphs to briefly state what the graph is showing. Eg. Graph 1:
Shows the mean score of…)

Page 5: Individual Discussion (1500 words)

o Sub title ‘Discussion’
o The discussion needs to be written using clear paragraphs that focus on specific points of
discussion.

PARAGRAPH 1: SUMMARY OF RESULTS

 Summary of results (using numbers) and statement of whether results support the original
hypothesis. You are extending what your graph shows the reader here.
  Include as many relevant numbers/descriptive statistics as you can in this paragraph. If numbers
appear in your table/graph in your results section, you should also explain their impact on results
here in this paragraph of your discussion.
 You then MUST interpret what your results suggest about your hypothesis – What did the results
suggest? Is there a difference between the groups? No differences? Data is too close together? E.g.
(a mean difference of 5 hours sleep indicates that listening to white noise does in fact increase
hours of sleep over the week.

 You could include: Are your results consistent with this past research/theories? If not, why not? If
they are, explain the link to your reader. Only one sentence should be about past research – the rest
needs to be explaining the meaning of your own findings
 State how your study has added to the broader body of knowledge in this area of Psychology (if at
all).

PARAGRAPH 2: REPRESENTATIVENESS OF SAMPLE

 Paragraph about representativeness and sample size (or lack thereof). How big was the sample you
used. Does this represent your population? (gender, age etc)
 Make sure you focus on YOUR hypothesis here – if you looked at experimental, you discuss the
sample used for that. If you looked at quantitative observational, discuss the sample used for that.
 Will your results be the same for every single person in the world? Generally, no – so you need to
tell your reader about this.
 Explicitly discuss whether or not your results can be generalised to: Both genders, all age groups, all
cultures, vulnerable groups (sleep disorder patients, young children, school students etc.)
 If they cannot be generalised, explain why using specific examples your sample/design/hypothesis.

PARAGRAPH 4: STRENGTHS OF STUDY

 Discuss the design that was used.

 What are some good aspects of this design? (refer to ppt info if needed)
(try to avoid ethics type discussion, as you will talk about this in your ethics paragraph)
 Only talk about strength relating to YOUR design and method. So if you do experimental, talk about
benefits of having done an experimental design and how that helped the results. If you did
subjective quantitative, discuss the positives of why this was useful to the results etc.
 Need three well explained strengths that apply to your hypothesis/variables.

PARAGRAPH 5: LIMITATIONS OF STUDY

 Could also explain your design used here (what are some limitations of using that design?) eg.
experimental- not applicable to real world.
 Did all participants complete the data collection at the same time under the same conditions with
the exact same instructions?
 How appropriate were the measures used for what was being collected?
 Was the research design appropriate for what you wanted to measure?
 Participant availability (recruits)? Can all of the results be verified? Why? Why not?
 Causation or merely generalisations?
 Replication?
 Applicability to real-world?
  Control over extraneous variables?
(if no to these things – it is a limitation)
 Need three well explained limitations that apply to your hypothesis/variables.

PARAGRAPH 6: VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

You can briefly discuss what validity and reliability are and how they are important in an investigation.
Validity:
External validity:
Can the results be generalised beyond this study or not? Explain why: Gender and age bias? Randomness in
selection? Structured or non-structured in design?
Internal validity:
Did the investigation actually measure what it says it is measuring? How can you be sure? Talk about the
handouts/tasks/etc.
Are there any other possible extraneous variables that could have been measured instead of your IV?
Reliability:
Would measures vary if circumstances changed? Why? Why not?
Would the results be the same if repeated under similar conditions at another time? Why/why not?

PARAGRAPH 7: IMPROVEMENTS

 Look at what you discussed in your limitations section

 Suggest ways to improve the investigation to overcome these limitations – be ruthless here! Change
design, change method, different tasks/handouts etc. Be specific. You are applying your knowledge
of psyc research.
 What is the next step you could take to go further with this investigation?
 What would this allow you to do that the current investigation design does not?

PARAGRAPH 8: ETHICS

 MUST discuss at least three to show broad/range depth. It is important that you are specific to this
investigation, and not general in this paragraph i.e. do not just define what informed consent is –
apply it to our investigation (if necessary).

 Only discuss the obvious ethical issues/dilemmas that apply to your variables/hypothesis.
Discussing all of them generally is not clear, thorough or concise.

 Conclusion
 Re-state what the aim of the investigation was
 Summarise the results (using numbers)
 State whether the results support he original hypothesis or not
 Summarise whether your results were consistent with past research or not
 Conclude with a sentence explaining that further research is still needed in this field (or something
similar) include word count.
Last Page: Bibliography
o If you included any research reference it here.