Instructions for Paper IV: Study Two Methods, Results, Discussion (Worth 30 Points)

Ryan J. Winter

Florida International University

Purpose of Paper IV: Study Two Methods, Results, and Discussion

1). Psychological Purpose

The psychological purpose behind Paper IV is to make sure you can summarize what you did in your second study, how you did it, and what you found. This is similar to Paper II, but you will include information related to your second independent variable in Paper IV.

For the results section in Paper IV, you will provide information about your participants, materials, and procedure. Your participant section goes first, and it includes descriptive statistics about your sample (means and standard deviations for age and percentages of gender and race/ethnicity). This is a new sample of participants, so you cannot use Paper II for this information. Make it NEW! Your materials and procedure sections include information about what you did and how you did it. You should once again write this section for an audience who is unfamiliar with your newer study two variables, but you can actually summarize or refer back to study one variables if and when they carry over from study one to study two. In the end, just remember that you must educate your reader about your materials and procedure, giving enough detail so they could replicate study two on their own. Your Paper IV Methods section will thus look a lot like your Paper II, but in Paper IV you will describe BOTH independent variables as well as important dependent variables (especially any new ones you added). I suggest reviewing your Paper II feedback to see if you need more clarity in your methods descriptions, but make sure that your reader is clear about the mechanics of your new 2 X 2 factorial design.

You will also write a new Results section. Since you now have two independent variables and potentially new dependent variables, you will not be able to reuse ANY content from Paper II. Rather, you will write a more complicated results section focusing on a 2 X 2 factorial design here.

Your Discussion section for Paper IV will be a short summary of what you found in that study. Similar to Paper II, you can make some educated guesses about what you found and why you found it, but keep the focus on study two only (in Paper V due at the end of the semester, you will include a more advanced discussion section that looks at both study one and study two, so keep the Paper IV discussion focused only on study two).

2). APA Formatting Purpose

The second purpose of Paper IV is to again teach you proper American Psychological Association (APA) formatting for methods and results. In the instructions below, I tell you how to format your paper using APA style, but this time with a focus on your 2 X 2 factorial ANOVAs. Once again, there are a lot of specific requirements in APA papers (as specific as what to italicize), so pay attention to the instructions below as well as Chapter 14 in your textbook!

3). Writing Purpose

Paper IV is intended to help you figure out how to update a Methods, Results and Discussion section using a 2 X 2 factorial design. This is more complicated than the One Way ANOVA you used in Paper II, but you should still be able to clearly and succinctly tell you readers what you did, how you did it, and what you found. Similar to Paper III, we will give you feedback and help in this paper. You will then be able to revise it for your final paper in the course (Paper V). Thus doing a good job on Paper IV will mean fewer revisions for the final paper.

Methods

This paper should be fairly easy for you! It is essentially a replication of your Paper II: Methods and Results (Study One) paper, except here you will extend that paper to include your second independent variable as well as any dependent variables you may have created. You will also use a more complex data analysis process now that you have a 2 X 2 factorial design. Keep in mind that Study Two is different from Study One. It may use some of the same materials, but your descriptions in the methods section should be specific to your Study Two idea. If you reuse some of the same variables, please refer to study one (I encourage it! No need to repeat yourself if you are using identical materials), but if the elements are new make sure to FULLY describe them. The results themselves will be completely different, as now that section will take into account two independent variables, and your brief discussion will similarly be new. Below are some of the points to cover in this paper. I will highlight in purple the new components you should pay attention to for this paper.

Title Page: I expect the following format (1 point):

Use your headers and title information from your prior Paper III: Literature review. See prior instructions for more info about the title page!

Methods Section: I expect the following format (10 points):

Write Method at the front of this section, make it bold, and center it.

The participants section comes next. The word Participants is bolded and left justified. In this section …

As in Paper II, tell me who your participants were (college students, family members, friends) and how many there were. If the number starts a sentence, then spell out the number. “Two-hundred and five participants …”. If it is mid-sentence, then you can use numerals. “There were 205 participants in this study.” Make sure this is for your NEW SAMPLE. This sample will differ from Paper II, so you will have to provide all new demographic data.

Provide frequencies and descriptive statistics for the most relevant demographic characteristics.

For some variables, like ethnicity and gender, you only need to provide frequency information (the number of participants who fit that category). “There were 100 men (49%) and 105 women (51%) in the study.” Or “The sample was 49% male (N = 100) and 51% female (N = 105).”

Other variables, like age, are continuous variables (rather than categorical), so use descriptive statistics here (the range, mean, and the standard deviation). “Participants ranged from 18 to 77 (M = 24, SD = 3.50).” or “The average age of participants was 24 (SD = 3.50).” By now you should be able to find these on your own, but I will give you a hint: run frequencies and descriptives to get demographic data

Materials and Procedure

For this section, things are again very flexible. Some studies include the Materials and Procedure in the same section while others break them up into two sections

It is a matter of choice which you choose. For me, the more complex the design, the better it is to split them up. In one section I will describe what the materials are; in the next I describe what participants did with those materials (the procedure)

Your Paper IV: Study Two Methods, Results, and Discussion is simple enough that I recommend combining them into one overall Materials and Procedure section. Here, you can refer back to your methods section from Paper II. (“We used the same Terror Management Theory manipulation as in study one, but here we included only the reject and deserve conditions”).

Again, the words Materials and Procedure is flush left. In this section …

Provide information about your materials and your procedure.

I suggest starting with your procedure. Tell your reader what your participants did in the order participants did them. Be specific. Assuming your study is similar to study one, I have the following recommendations (though your study may differ, so take these only as recommendations!):

First, talk about informed consent.

Second, talk about the different versions of the hindsight bias studies. Provide enough detail so that your readers know how the conditions differ. Imagine I need to replicate your design – give me enough detail so I can do so. Also fully describe your new independent variable for study two. For example, my additional IV may be whether participants are forewarned or not. I need to fully describe that new independent variable in the methods for this second study

Study two looks at the Mortality Salience and Dental Pain conditions as two levels of one IV. I also have Forewarning versus No Forewarning as a second IV. This gives me four cells: 1) Forewarning MS, 2) Forewarning DP, 3) No forewarning MS, and 4) No forewarning DP

Third, talk about your dependent variables (that is, your survey questions. For these DVs, once again provide enough detail so I know exactly what questions you asked. For example, “Participants provided their gender, age, and race”. For other dependent variables, tell me how the responses were recorded (yes/no, true/false, a scale of 1 to 9, etc.). If you used a scale, note the endpoints. That is, does a 1 mean it is high or is it low? “Participants were asked, ‘How surprising was the outcome?’, and they responded on a scale from 1 (unsurprising) to 10 (surprising).’” Highlight any new DVs you created for this study. For example, I may ask a manipulation check question asking if they were forewarned (“Did you read a warning that thinking about death might impact decisions? Pick one.”)

Fourth, make sure to highlight which DVs you analyzed. If there are DVs participants completed but you did not analyze it, feel free to say those DVs were not analyzed.

Finally, mention debriefing

There is no set minimum or maximum on the length of the methods section, but I would expect at least a page or two as you detail your materials and procedure. Missing important aspects of your IVs and DVs or presenting them in a confused manner will lower your score in this section

Results Section: I expect the following format (10 points):

The results are the hardest part of this paper, so again, pay close attention to your lab instructor

First, write Results at the top of this section and center it boldface. This section comes directly at the end of the methods section, so the results section DOES NOT start on its own page.

For this assignment, include statistics about the most important variables in your study. For Paper IV: Study Two Methods, Results, and Discussion, your study design should be more complex than your study one. You are dealing with a factorial design now (more than one IV), such as a 2 X 2 or 2 X 3. Let me walk you through some of the guidelines for a 2 X 2 design.

First, run manipulation checks on at least one of your IVs.

You can use a chi square on nominal variables (“Did you write about death or dental pain?”)

OR you might need to run a t-Test if your manipulation check question is based on an interval or ratio scale (For example, if I manipulated anger by giving half of the participants a hard time about their intelligence before they read the essay instructions, I might ask “On a scale of 1 to 9, how angry were you?” and then run a t-Test on the dependent variable anger to see if my manipulation did in fact work).

I actually recommend running manipulation checks on both of your manipulations, though only one is required

Second, run a 2 X 2 ANOVA for two different DVs (This is still a univariate analysis of variance, but now with two IV’s). For EACH of your dependent variables, you will report at least three F tests (an F for the main effect of IV #1, an F for the main effect of IV #2, and an F for the interaction. If your interaction is significant, then you may actually report seven different F tests for each DV with the simple effects tests! That is …

There will be a main effect in the ANOVA table for the first IV. Provide the degrees of freedom, F value, and p value. Regardless of whether it is significant, I want you to provide the means and standard deviation for both levels of the IV. Imagine your first IV is “Warning”. Your main effect write up will look like this …

“Using forewarning (warned versus not warned) and condition (MS versus DP) as our IVs and the number of death-related words they found as our DV, there was no main effect for forewarning, F(1, 189) = 1.97, p > .05. Participants did not differ in the number of death-related words they found in the warned (M = 2.35, SD = 1.21) versus not warned (M = 2.21, SD = 0.87) conditions.”

There will be a main effect in the ANOVA table for the second IV. Again, provide the F test. Regardless of significance, give the means and standard deviations for both levels of the IV. (This comes in the same paragraph as the main effect for warning)

“There was, however, a significant condition main effect, F( 1, 189) = 3.42, p < .05. Participants found more death-related words in the MS condition (M = 5.56, SD = 1.21) than in the DP condition (M = 3.24, SD = 0.89).”

Finally, there will be an interaction for IV 1 X IV 2. Provide the F test again.

Significant interaction:

“The main effects were qualified by a Warning X Condition interaction, F(1, 187) = 6.61, p < .05.”

If there is a significant interaction, there are a total of five F tests for this interaction (one for the main interaction plus four “simple effect” comparisons). This one gets complicated. Normally, this can all go in the same paragraph:

First, simple effects showed that MS participants found more death-words in the unwarned condition (M = 5.76, SD = 1.27) than the warned condition (M = 2.21, SD = 1.90), F(2, 95) = 6.24, p < .05.

Second, simple effects showed that DP participants did not differ in the number of death-words they found in the warning condition (M = 2.78, SD = 3.45) and no warning condition (M = 2.72, SD = 2.87), F(2, 93) = 1.13, p > .05.

Third, for participants who were warned, simple effect tests showed that participants did not differ in the number of death-words they found in the MS condition (M = 2.76, SD = 1.27) and DP conditions (M = 2.78, SD = 3.45), F(2, 95) = 1.31, p > .05.

Fourth, for participants in the no warning condition, simple effect tests showed that participants found more death-words in the MS condition (M = 5.21, SD = 1.90) than in the DP condition (M = 2.72, SD = 2.87), F(2, 95) = 3.11, p < .05.

In general, this shows that participants found more death words when primed with Mortality Salience open-ended questions and not warned about the effects of death-awareness than in all other conditions.

Non-significant interaction

There was no warning X condition interaction, F(1, 187) = 1.61, p > .05. Since the interaction was not significant, simple effects tests were not needed.

Please note that you might run a lot of statistical tests for one DV (like the original F test followed-up with simple effects tests). This still only counts as one DV. You need to look at three DVs, so you might have as many as 11 or so tests in this section.

Like the methods section, there is no page minimum or maximum for the results section, though I would expect it to be at least a paragraph or two for each dependent variable

Discussion Section (2 points)

In a short paragraph or two, write a brief discussion of your results. Tell me if you did or did not support your hypotheses. In this section, do NOT go into detail about the statistics. If I need that information, I’ll just look at your results section. Here, I just want a plain English summary of what you found. Something like …

Overall, these results indicate that warning participants about belief preference decreases their reliance on prior study information compared to not warning them.

References are not required for this paper

Appendices: Study Two (4 points)

I want to make sure you are including the correct numbers in your results section, so I want you to include all relevant SPSS tables for each of your analyses in a series of appendices. You can include these as appendices A, B, C, and D for study two, but I actually recommend naming them E, F, G, and H since you have A, B, C, and D from study one already. That way, when you get to Paper V, you’ll have all eight appendices in alphabetical order A through H

Appendix E: Demographic Information Study Two

Appendix F: Chi Square (or other Manipulation Check)

Make sure to include a table for your manipulation check. If you do a chi square for a nominal variable, this will include the cross-tabulation table and the chi square table. Or, if you do a t-Test or ANOVA, this will include the descriptive statistics as well as the t-Test table itself (or the ANOVA table itself)

Appendix G: first dependent variable (First 2 X 2 ANOVA)

Make sure to include your descriptive statistics table and your Tests of Between Subject Effects table. If your interaction is not significant, you’re done. If it is significant, normally you would run simple effects follow up tests. You still need to run them, but for purposes of this appendix all I need to see is the original ANOVA table and the original descriptive table.

Appendix H: Second dependent variable (Second 2 X 2 ANOVA)

This is the same as the second dependent variable above, but for a different dependent variable

In the end, I expect four appendices for study two (one for demographics, one for a chi square/t-Test and one for each 2 X 2 ANOVA).

Appendices will come at the end of the paper

Overall writing quality (3 points)

Make sure you check your paper for proper spelling and grammar. The FIU writing center is available if you want someone to look over your paper (an extra eye is always good!) and give you advice. I highly recommend them, as writing quality will become even more important on future papers.

Other Guidelines for Paper IV: Study Two Methods, Results, and Discussion

 

1). Page size is 8 1/2 X 11” with all 4 margins set at one inch on all sides. You must use a Times New Roman 12-point font and double space all sentences/paragraphs in the paper.

2). PLEASE use a spell checker to avoid unnecessary errors. Proofread everything you write. I actually recommend reading some sentences aloud to see if they flow well, or getting family or friends to read your work.

Below is a write up for the significant interaction for the 2 X 2 ANOVA. Here, I just put it all in one paragraph, as it would appear in a results section (double space YOUR section, though). Notice there are 7 F tests for this significant 2 X 2 interaction.

Using forewarning (warned versus not warned) and condition (MS versus DP) as our IVs and the number of death-related words partiicpants found as our DV, there was no main effect for forewarning, F(1, 189) = 1.97, p > .05. Participants did not differ in the number of death-related words they found in the warned (M = 2.35, SD = 1.21) versus not warned (M = 2.21, SD = 0.87) conditions. There was, however, a significant condition main effect, F( 1, 189) = 3.42, p < .05. Participants found more death-related words in the MS condition (M = 5.56, SD = 1.21) than in the DP condition (M = 3.24, SD = 0.89). The main effects were qualified by a Warning X Condition interaction, F(1, 187) = 6.61, p < .05. First, simple effects showed that MS participants found more death-words in the unwarned condition (M = 5.76, SD = 1.27) than the warned condition (M = 2.21, SD = 1.90), F(2, 95) = 6.24, p < .05. Second, simple effects showed that DP participants did not differ in the number of death-words they found in the warning condition (M = 2.78, SD = 3.45) and no warning condition (M = 2.72, SD = 2.87), F(2, 93) = 1.13, p > .05. Third, for participants who were warned, simple effect tests showed that participants did not differ in the number of death-words they found in the MS condition (M = 2.76, SD = 1.27) and DP conditions (M = 2.78, SD = 3.45), F(2, 95) = 1.31, p > .05. Fourth, for participants in the no warning condition, simple effect tests showed that participants found more death-words in the MS condition (M = 5.21, SD = 1.90) than in the DP condition (M = 2.72, SD = 2.87), F(2, 95) = 3.11, p < .05. In general, this shows that participants found more death words when primed with Mortality Salience open-ended questions and not warned about the effects of death-awareness than in all other conditions.

Checklist – Paper IV: Study Two Methods, Results, and Discussion

Use the check sheet below to make sure your paper is the best it can be! Make sure you answer “Yes” to all questions before submitting your paper or you will lose points! The first two sections duplicate the checklist from Papers I, II, and III, but the rest is unique to Paper IV.

General Paper Format (This section is identical to the Papers I, II, and III Checklist)

Yes No Is everything in your paper (including headers, the main body of your mini-literature review, and your references) in 12 point Times New Roman font?

Is everything in your paper double spaced, including references (here I mean the spacing above and below each line, not the spaces following a period)?

Do you have one inch margins on all sides of the paper (one inch from the top of the page, one inch from the bottom, and one inch from each side)

Are the first lines of all paragraphs indented another ½ inch (or 1 ½ inches from the page edge)?

Are your paragraphs aligned left? (That is, text should be flush left, with lines lining up on the left of the page, but text should NOT line up on the right side of the page – it should look ragged)

Do you need help figuring out how to configure a word document in APA format (inserting headers, page numbers, proper indents, etc.)? If YES or NO, I highly recommend watching this video which walks you through setting up an APA formatted paper! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pbUoNa5tyY​ 

Title page (This section is identical to the Papers I, II, and III Checklist)

Yes No Header

Do you have the phrase “Running head” in your header (with a lower case h)?

Is the rest of your Running head title in ALL CAPS?

Is your Running head in 12 point Times New Roman font?

Do you have a page number that is flush right (also in 12 point Times New Roman font)?

Title / Name / Institution

Is your title 12 words or less (as recommended by the APA)?

Do all title words with four letters or more start with a capital letter?

Are your name and institution correct?

Are your title, name, and institution elements centered and in 12 point Times New Roman font?

Methods Section (This is similar to Paper II, but new elements are in bold purple text)

Yes No Header

Is your header title present and identical to your header title on the title page?

Is your header title in ALL CAPS and 12 point Times New Roman font?

Does your header on this second page omit the phrase “Running head”

Do you have a page number starting on page 2

Title for the methods section

Is the word “Methods” centered and in bold at the top of your methods page?

Methods Section Continued

Yes No Participants

Do you have the word “Participants” flush left and in bold, right below the word “Methods”?

Did you list out your demographic characteristics, including gender, age, and ethnicity / race?

Did you provide the descriptive statistics for (means and standard deviations) for age and italicize the letters M and SD?

Did you provide frequencies for gender and ethnicity/race and italicize the N?

Did you use the brand new participant set from study two and NOT the set from study one?

Materials and Procedure

Did you mention informed consent?

Did you thoroughly describe your two independent variable in enough depth and detail that another researcher could duplicate your materials (though you can refer back to study one if the variable is identical)?

Did you give your IVs names that matches up with the names you refer to in the results section?

Did you describe all of your most relevant dependent variables, noting the scales you used (e.g. “Yes / No”, “A scale ranging from 1 (not at all likely) to 9 (very likely))” for EACH of your DVs?

Did you fully describe what participants went through in the study, noting the order in which they received study materials (e.g. first informed consent, then IVs, DVs, and debriefing)?

Results Section (This is similar to Paper II, but new elements are in bold purple text)

Yes No Do you have the word “Results” centered and in bold, immediately following the methods section?

Did you analyze at least three different dependent variables?

Note: using a t-Test to analyze question #4 and an ANOVA to once again analyze question #4 does NOT count as two different DVs. That is the same DV analyzed twice. Make sure to look at three different DVs, one of which is a manipulation check and two of which focus on 2 X 2 ANOVAs

Did you mention all of the IVs and the DV by name when talking about your analysis?

Did you include means and standard deviations within parentheses for each level of your independent variables?

If your factorial ANOVA was significant, did you include follow up simple effects tests? (That is, do you have seven total F tests)?

Did you italicize the letters F, t, p, M, SD, and X2 (where appropriate)?

Discussion Section (New Information in this section)

Yes No Do you have the word “Discussion” centered and in bold, immediately following the results section?

Did you remind your reader of your study two hypothesis?

Did you mention whether you supported or did not support your study two hypothesis?

Appendix (New Information in this section)

Yes No Title for the appendix page

Do your appendices come at the end of the paper?

Does each of your four appendices (E, F, G, and H) start on their own page?

Is the word “Appendix” centered on each page followed by a short description of the appendix?

Appendix Information

Appendix E: Did you include a table for each of the following demographic variables: Gender, age, and ethnicity?

Appendix F: For your manipulation check, did you include your chi square or t-Test info? (If a chi square, did you include your crosstabulation and chi square table? If a t-Test, did you include your descriptives and t-Test table?)

Appendix G: For your first 2 X 2 ANOVA, did you include the descriptives tables and your F table?

Appendix H: For your second 2 X 2 ANOVA, did you include the descriptives tables and your F table?