Method Section

You are expected to write an APA style methods section for your research paper. It
should be a maximum of 2-3 pages (typed, double-spaced, 12-point font, Times New
Roman, 1” margins) and is due in the appropriate D2L submission folder by the due
date listed on the syllabus. Please remember that this paper is to be ENTIRELY
your own work in your own words. You may discuss topics with your classmates
but you may not write them together or use each other’s work. Plagiarism will result
in a zero on this assignment and you will be reported to the academic integrity
office.

Note: The method section should be written in the past tense even though you
haven’t actually conducted the study yet. In some instances, you may have to
speculate to address some of the questions but that’s okay. You will just correct it
for the final paper. If you have to leave spaces for numbers you don’t know yet, go
ahead and just write in “X.” For example, “Our participants consisted of XX
undergraduate students from Radford University.”

Expectations and grading rubric are below:

Method (12 points)

Participants:
- Who are your participants? Why are you using these participants? How did
you recruit them? Make sure to give information on mean/SD of age, and
categorical information for gender, race, grade, etc. Describe them using your
demographic variables.
- If any participants were excluded, why? And how many?
- If you haven’t specified your research design, make sure you tell us what that
is and detail why you have chosen the methods you used (self-report,
observational, etc.).

Measures:
- What are your variables? Make sure you operationally define the variables
you use (these should be scales or individual questions, depending on your
topics).
- You should have a section for each scale you used. Make sure to cite each
scale so readers know where these scales came from.
- You should include the Mean/SD for each scale
- How did you calculate scale scores? Is it an average? Is it a sum? What do
higher scores on your measures mean?
- Give an example or two of items from your scale. If you are using a single
item, just tell us what the item said.
- You should also include cronbach’s alpha for scales (this is not necessary if
you are using a single item to measure a construct).
Procedure:
- What did you do from start to finish? Be specific so that if someone wanted to
recreate your study they could.
- How will your data be collected and analyzed? Include statistics (correlation,
t-test, etc.). Clearly restate your research hypotheses and discuss how your
method will answer the questions. Make sure to include enough detail.

References (3 points)
Did you include/add any pertinent references used as guides for your
surveys? (Hint: you should have 1 reference for each survey you used, more if you
pulled individual questions from other surveys.”

Example below.

Method

Participants

Participants were 100 undergraduate college students enrolled in a

psychology course at a medium-sized university in the Southeastern United States.

Participants received course credit for their participation in this study. Two

participants were excluded from the study due to incomplete data (more than 30%

of the data was missing) and one was excluded because they spent less than 3

minutes on the survey portion of the study. The remaining sample consisted of 97

participants. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 25, with a mean age of 19.67 (SD

= 2.19). The majority of participants were female (70%) and 30% were male. Also,

the majority of the participants were Caucasian (85.8%), 9.2% were African-

American, 1% were Asian/Pacific Islander, less than 1% were Native-American, less

than 1% were Hispanic, and 2.5% reported “other” ethnicity. The average current

GPA reported was 3.20 with a standard deviation of .89. The majority of the
participants were single (92.5%), 3.3% were married, 2.5% were divorced, 1.7%

were engaged.

Measures

A measure of Psyc 302 Satisfaction was obtained using the Example Psyc 302

Survey Name (Clark & Kiser, 2023). This scale measures participants’ overall

satisfaction with Psyc 302, while also examining subscales of learning, grades, and

research experience domains. Participants rated 29 items on a 6-point numerical

rating scale as to how much they identified with each statement (1 = strongly

disagree, 6 = strongly agree). Examples of the Satisfaction scale include: 1) “I feel in

control over success in Psyc 302” and 2) “My instructors are competent.” Scale

scores for the Satisfaction with 302 were created by averaging the scores for

respective items, such that higher scores indicated better overall satisfaction scores.

For the Satisfaction with 302 Scale, the mean was 3.67 (SD = 1.67) and the range

was 5.87. Cronbach’s alpha (a measure of internal consistency) was .85.

You will have a paragraph just like the one above for each of the scales you

put into your Qualtrics survey.

Procedures

Participants were recruited form the Psychology Department Research

Participant Pool. Potential participants logged into SONA (Sona Systems Ltd., Tallin,

Estonia) and signed up to participate in the study online through Qualtrics

(Qualtrics Inc., Provo, UT). This was a correlational study. Participants started by

completing the informed consent procedures. Next, participants responded to the

study measures (Satisfaction with Psyc 302 Survey, etc.). The order of surveys was
counterbalanced among participants, so that participants received the surveys in a

random order. After completing the main measures, participants completed a short

demographics questionnaire. Finally, participants were debriefed, were thanked for

their participation, and provided additional contact information should any

questions or concerns arise after the study.