Deck 3: How to Find, Read, Write and Think About Research Papers

Question 1

What are the standards by which the formatting and structure of a research paper are determined?

A) The American Psychological Association
B) The British Psychological Society
C) The American Psychological Society
D) The British Psychological Association

Answer 1

A
Explanation: The way that psychological research papers are structured and formatted is determined by the American Psychological Association (APA) standards.

Question 2

What information should an abstract contain?

A) The authors names and the institutions they work at
B) A summary of the methods used
C) A very concise summary of the Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion.
D) A summary of the key findings of the study

Answer 2

C
Explanation: An abstract is a short summary of the entire research report.

Question 3

The final paragraph of an Introduction should contain…

A) The analysis strategy
B) The key findings of the study
C) The hypotheses
D) The number of participants recruited to the study

Answer 3

C
Explanation: Your hypotheses should be the very last thing you include in your Introduction.

Question 4

The Methods section should contain four subsections, but which is the correct order that they should be presented in?

A) Participants, Materials, Design, Procedure
B) Materials, Procedure, Participants, Design
C) Participants, Design, Materials, Procedure
D) Participants, Materials, Procedure, Design

Question 5

Which of the following would NOT be an appropriate way to present the descriptive statistics in a Results section?

A) In a table
B) In at least two different ways
C) In a graph
D) In the text

Question 6

Which of the following should you NOT do in a Discussion section?

A) Give a brief summary of the findings
B) Criticise the study
C) Contrast the findings with previous research
D) Repeat the actual statistics and numbers from the Results

Question 7

Which of the following would NOT be an appropriate way to end the Discussion of a memory study conducted on undergraduate participants?

A) Suggesting how these results could help to develop memory aids for patients with amnesia
B) Suggesting how these results could contribute to furthering the existing theoretical models of memory
C) Suggesting a further piece of research that could resolve some of the methodological limitations from the present piece of research
D) Suggesting a further piece of research that could resolve some of the unanswered issues from the present piece of research

Question 8

Which of the following is NOT true about the References section?

A) References should be presented in APA format
B) All of the papers that you have read should be included, even if you did not cite them in your paper
C) Only papers that you read and cited should be included in the References
D) References should be presented in alphabetical order

Question 9

Which of the following references is presented correctly using APA style?

A) Shinskey, Jeanne, & Jachens, Liza. (2014). Picturing objects in infancy. Child Development, 85, 1813-1820.
B) Shinskey, J. L., & Jachens, L. J. Picturing objects in infancy. Child Development, (2014), 85, 1813-1820.
C) Shinskey, J. L., & Jachens, L. J. (2014). Picturing objects in infancy. Child Development, 85, 1813-1820.
D) Shinskey, J. L., & Jachens, L. J. (2014). Picturing objects in infancy. Child Development, 1813-1820.

Question 10

Which of the following is an example of using a "wildcard" in a search for research papers?

A) (analyse OR analyze)
B) (analysis AND correlation)
C) "Pearson's correlation analysis"
D) Analy*