Читать книгу Methods in Psychological Research - Annabel Ness Evans - Страница 80

Although the variables of the research are defined and discussed in the introduction, it is in the method section where you will read the details of exactly how these variables are measured, manipulated, or controlled. Indeed, if there is a theme to the method section, it would be details, details, details. You should find enough (dare we say it again) details in the method section to replicate the study on your own. That is, you should have all the necessary information to repeat the study as it was done by the authors, with different participants, of course.

The method section is typically divided into a number of subsections, usually separated with subheads (for more detail on writing a method section, see Chapter 14). The first subsection, typically called Participants, if human, and Subjects, if animal, will provide information about who or what was included in the research. You will read how the participants were recruited into the study or how the animals were obtained. Demographic information will be included, such as age, gender, race, and education level. If nonhuman subjects were used, details of care and housing will be described. Of course, you will also read how many participants were included and what type of sampling method was used. You can find more information about sampling in Chapter 6.

You may find a subsection called Materials and/or Apparatus. Here, you will find manufacturers and model numbers of equipment and apparatus, details of tests and measures and the conditions of testing, and often a description of any stimulus materials used. Somewhere in the method section, you will read a description of the research design and the statistical tests. It does not necessarily make for good reading, but the purpose is to provide fine detail, not to entertain. It is in the method section that we find out exactly what was done. The procedure is described in a subsection called, well, Procedure. This is often written as a chronological sequence of what happened to the participants. Again, as with all the subsections of the method section, it is written in painstaking detail.

In our example article, Knez (2001) tells us he studied 54 women and 54 men, all 18 years old and all in high school. The basic design is described as a factorial between-subjects (his word, not ours) design (see Chapter 7) with three different lights and two genders. He also describes the testing conditions, details of the lighting (the IV), and the various dependent measures. He describes the procedure of the experiment, providing the time of day of testing, the information participants were given, and the order in which the tests were administered. At the end of the section, we have enough information that we could probably replicate the study exactly as he had done.

After reading the introduction and the method section, we now know quite a bit about the research area, the current researcher’s study, and how he or she carried it out. It is time to find out what happened.