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How to Write an APA Results Section

Verywell / Nusha Ashjaee 

What to Include in an APA Results Section

• Justify Claims
• Summarize Results

Report All Relevant Results

• Report Statistical Findings

Include Tables and Figures

What not to include in an apa results section.

Psychology papers generally follow a specific structure. One important section of a paper is known as the results section. An APA results section of a psychology paper summarizes the data that was collected and the statistical analyses that were performed. The goal of this section is to report the results of your study or experiment without any type of subjective interpretation.

At a Glance

The results section is a vital part of an APA paper that summarizes a study's findings and statistical analysis. This section often includes descriptive text, tables, and figures to help summarize the findings.

The focus is purely on summarizing and presenting the findings and should not include any interpretation, since you'll cover that in the subsequent discussion section.

This article covers how to write an APA results section, including what to include and what to avoid.

The results section is the third section of a psychology paper. It will appear after the introduction and methods sections and before the discussion section.

The results section should include:

• A summary of the research findings.
• Information about participant flow, recruitment , retention, and attrition. If some participants started the study and later left or failed to complete the study, then this should be described. 
• Information about any reasons why some data might have been excluded from the study. 
• Statistical information including samples sizes and statistical tests that were used. It should report standard deviations, p-values, and other measures of interest.

Results Should Justify Your Claims

Report data in order to sufficiently justify your conclusions. Since you'll be talking about your own interpretation of the results in the discussion section, you need to be sure that the information reported in the results section justifies your claims.

When you start writing your discussion section, you can then look back on your results to ensure that all the data you need are there to fully support your conclusions. Be sure not to make claims in your discussion section that are not supported by the findings described in your results section.

Summarize Your Results

Remember, you are summarizing the results of your psychological study, not reporting them in full detail. The results section should be a relatively brief overview of your findings, not a complete presentation of every single number and calculation.

If you choose, you can create a supplemental online archive where other researchers can access the raw data if they choose.

How long should a results section be?

The length of your results section will vary depending on the nature of your paper and the complexity of your research. In most cases, this will be the shortest section of your paper.

Just as the results section of your psychology paper should sufficiently justify your claims, it should also provide an accurate look at what you found in your study. Be sure to mention all relevant information.

Don't omit findings simply because they failed to support your predictions.

Your hypothesis may have expected more statistically significant results or your study didn't support your hypothesis , but that doesn't mean that the conclusions you reach are not useful. Provide data about what you found in your results section, then save your interpretation for what the results might mean in the discussion section.

While your study might not have supported your original predictions, your finding can provide important inspiration for future explorations into a topic.

How is the results section different from the discussion section?

The results section provides the results of your study or experiment . The goal of the section is to report what happened and the statistical analyses you performed. The discussion section is where you will examine what these results mean and whether they support or fail to support your hypothesis.

Report Your Statistical Findings

Always assume that your readers have a solid understanding of statistical concepts. There's no need to explain what a t-test is or how a one-way ANOVA works. Your responsibility is to report the results of your study, not to teach your readers how to analyze or interpret statistics.

Include Effect Sizes

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association recommends including effect sizes in your results section so that readers can appreciate the importance of your study's findings.

Your results section should include both text and illustrations. Presenting data in this way makes it easier for readers to quickly look at your results.

Structure your results section around tables or figures that summarize the results of your statistical analysis. In many cases, the easiest way to accomplish this is to first create your tables and figures and then organize them in a logical way. Next, write the summary text to support your illustrative materials.

Only include tables and figures if you are going to talk about them in the body text of your results section.

In addition to knowing what you should include in the results section of your psychology paper, it's also important to be aware of things that you should avoid putting in this section:

Cause-and-Effect Conclusions

Don't draw cause-effect conclusions. Avoid making any claims suggesting that your result "proves" that something is true. 

Interpretations

Present the data without editorializing it. Save your comments and interpretations for the discussion section of your paper. 

Statistics Without Context

Don't include statistics without narration. The results section should not be a numbers dump. Instead, you should sequentially narrate what these numbers mean.

Don't include the raw data in the results section. The results section should be a concise presentation of the results. If there is raw data that would be useful, include it in the appendix .

Don't only rely on descriptive text. Use tables and figures to present these findings when appropriate. This makes the results section easier to read and can convey a great deal of information quickly.

Repeated Data

Don't present the same data twice in your illustrative materials. If you have already presented some data in a table, don't present it again in a figure. If you have presented data in a figure, don't present it again in a table.

All of Your Findings

Don't feel like you have to include everything. If data is irrelevant to the research question, don't include it in the results section.

But Don't Skip Relevant Data

Don't leave out results because they don't support your claims. Even if your data does not support your hypothesis, including it in your findings is essential if it's relevant.

More Tips for Writing a Results Section

If you are struggling, there are a few things to remember that might help:

• Use the past tense . The results section should be written in the past tense.
• Be concise and objective . You will have the opportunity to give your own interpretations of the results in the discussion section.
• Use APA format . As you are writing your results section, keep a style guide on hand. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is the official source for APA style .
• Visit your library . Read some journal articles that are on your topic. Pay attention to how the authors present the results of their research.
• Get a second opinion . If possible, take your paper to your school's writing lab for additional assistance.

What This Means For You

Remember, the results section of your paper is all about providing the data from your study. This section is often the shortest part of your paper, and in most cases, the most clinical.

Be sure not to include any subjective interpretation of the results. Simply relay the data in the most objective and straightforward way possible. You can then provide your own analysis of what these results mean in the discussion section of your paper.

Bavdekar SB, Chandak S. Results: Unraveling the findings . J Assoc Physicians India . 2015 Sep;63(9):44-6. PMID:27608866.

Snyder N, Foltz C, Lendner M, Vaccaro AR. How to write an effective results section .  Clin Spine Surg . 2019;32(7):295-296. doi:10.1097/BSD.0000000000000845

American Psychological Association.  Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association  (7th ed.). Washington DC: The American Psychological Association; 2019.

Purdue Online Writing Lab. APA sample paper: Experimental psychology .

Berkeley University. Reviewing test results .

Tuncel A, Atan A. How to clearly articulate results and construct tables and figures in a scientific paper ? Turk J Urol . 2013;39(Suppl 1):16-19. doi:10.5152/tud.2013.048

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion

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Method section

Your method section provides a detailed overview of how you conducted your research. Because your study methods form a large part of your credibility as a researcher and writer, it is imperative that you be clear about what you did to gather information from participants in your study.

With your methods section, as with the sections above, you want to walk your readers through your study almost as if they were a participant. What happened first? What happened next?

The method section includes the following sub-sections.

I. Participants: Discuss who was enrolled in your experiment. Include major demographics that have an impact on the results of the experiment (i.e. if race is a factor, you should provide a breakdown by race). The accepted term for describing a person who participates in research studies is a participant not a subject.

II. Apparatus and materials: The apparatus is any equipment used during data collection (such as computers or eye-tracking devices). Materials include scripts, surveys, or software used for data collection (not data analysis). It is sometimes necessary to provide specific examples of materials or prompts, depending on the nature of your study.

III. Procedure: The procedure includes the step-by-step how of your experiment. The procedure should include:

• A description of the experimental design and how participants were assigned conditions.
• Identification of your independent variable(s) (IV), dependent variable(s) (DV), and control variables. Give your variables clear, meaningful names so that your readers are not confused.
• Important instructions to participants.
• A step-by-step listing in chronological order of what participants did during the experiment.

Results section

The results section is where you present the results of your research-both narrated for the readers in plain English and accompanied by statistics.

Note : Depending on the requirements or the projected length of your paper, sometimes the results are combined with the discussion section.

Organizing Results

Continue with your story in the results section. How do your results fit with the overall story you are telling? What results are the most compelling? You want to begin your discussion by reminding your readers once again what your hypotheses were and what your overall story is. Then provide each result as it relates to that story. The most important results should go first.

Preliminary discussion: Sometimes it is necessary to provide a preliminary discussion in your results section about your participant groups. In order to convince your readers that your results are meaningful, you must first demonstrate that the conditions of the study were met. For example, if you randomly assigned subjects into groups, are these two groups comparable? You can't discuss the differences in the two groups until you establish that the two groups can be compared.

Provide information on your data analysis: Be sure to describe the analysis you did. If you are using a non-conventional analysis, you also need to provide justification for why you are doing so.

Presenting Results : Bem (2006) recommends the following pattern for presenting findings:

• Remind readers of the conceptual hypotheses or questions you are asking
• Remind readers of behaviors measured or operations performed
• Provide the answer/result in plain English
• Provide the statistic that supports your plain English answer
• Elaborate or qualify the overall conclusion if necessary

Writers new to psychology and writing with statistics often dump numbers at their readers without providing a clear narration of what those numbers mean. Please see our Writing with Statistics handout for more information on how to write with statistics.

Discussion section

Your discussion section is where you talk about what your results mean and where you wrap up the overall story you are telling. This is where you interpret your findings, evaluate your hypotheses or research questions, discuss unexpected results, and tie your findings to the previous literature (discussed first in your literature review). Your discussion section should move from specific to general.

Here are some tips for writing your discussion section.

• Begin by providing an interpretation of your results: what is it that you have learned from your research?
• Discuss each hypotheses or research question in more depth.
• Do not repeat what you have already said in your results—instead, focus on adding new information and broadening the perspective of your results to you reader.
• Discuss how your results compare to previous findings in the literature. If there are differences, discuss why you think these differences exist and what they could mean.
• Briefly consider your study's limitations, but do not dwell on its flaws.
• Consider also what new questions your study raises, what questions your study was not able to answer, and what avenues future research could take in this area.

Example: Here is how this works.

References section

References should be in standard APA format. Please see our APA Formatting guide for specific instructions.

This page has been archived and is no longer being updated regularly.

Degree In Sight

Writing up your results

Be open to surprising findings, but don't lose track of your dissertation's main research questions, experts advise.

By ETIENNE S. BENSON

If you wait until you finish data collection to start thinking about your analysis, you've waited too long, says Randy Larsen, PhD, head of the psychology department at Washington University in St. Louis. Rather, before you begin, establish a "road map" that matches your hypotheses to specific analyses that will best test those hypotheses, he recommends. Moreover, try to meet with your dissertation committee to go over the road map, even if your department doesn't require it.

When presenting complex relationships or numerous variables, a good chart, table or graph can make all the difference.

Not having a road map--and failing to tap the resources you have--are among the common pitfalls students face in finishing their dissertations. Some students get hung up on data analysis, struggling with complex statistical procedures or wasting time on analyses that are tangential to their main research questions. Others have difficulty writing up their analyses in a clear and concise manner that meets professional standards.

The good news is that there are resources that can help you resolve such issues. From statistics workshops to style guides, such resources can help you get your dissertation done on schedule.

After all, says Larsen, "A dissertation is a project; it's got to have an end."

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

One of the trickiest dissertation challenges is sorting out your data. For particularly thorny statistical challenges, the expertise you need may not be available in your home department. Karen Kaczynski, a fifth-year doctoral student at the University of Miami, began planning a dissertation on gender differences in substance abuse among inner-city Hispanic-American adolescents. Although she was familiar with longitudinal data-analysis techniques, she worried that they might not be appropriate for her small sample size of 20 female participants.

So, she attended several workshops, including the APA-sponsored Advanced Training Institute on longitudinal methods, supervised by Jack McArdle, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia.

"I was able to ask him specifically about my concerns with using complex analytic techniques with a limited sample size," says Kaczynski. "It was really wonderful to be able to discuss my analyses with someone with his expertise." Back at her home department, she refined her analysis with the help of Maria Llabre, PhD, her department's resident statistics expert.

If you plan to continue in academia after your doctorate, delving into the details of complex statistical methods can be a wise investment, experts say. For her dissertation at Washington University, Nicole Speer, PhD, studied event perception using behavioral measures and functional brain imaging. She says that learning logistic regression, Monte Carlo simulations, brain-imaging analysis and other techniques--with the help of her adviser, other faculty members and fellow students--was well worth the effort.

"Even though it definitely ends up taking you more time to learn, in the long run it's really worth it because if you're continuing in research, you'll most likely be using similar techniques in the future," says Speer.

For computationally intensive analyses, invest in--or have access to--the hardware and software you need. Speer used an APA dissertation grant to buy a powerful computer that shaved weeks off her data analysis, she says. Even so, the analysis took three or four months longer than she had anticipated, in part because she expanded her original plans to address new questions that arose after her data were collected--a move her adviser Jeffrey Zacks, PhD, supported.

"Many data are expensive, so spending time to really digest a dataset is often a wise investment," says Zacks. As Sharon Foster, PhD, and John Cone, PhD, point out in "Dissertations and Theses From Start to Finish" (APA, 1993), adventitious findings are sometimes the most interesting ones.

At the same time, graduate students often lose valuable time exploring issues that are tangential to their main interests, says Larsen. While such meanderings can lead to real breakthroughs, graduate school may not be the ideal time to pursue them. Conduct your planned analyses, write up your results and record unexpected findings for future exploration, suggests Larsen.

FORMAT AND DESIGN

While the results you report may be groundbreaking, the formatting you use should be anything but. Consult style guides and follow professional guidelines, advises Stephen Hinshaw, PhD, chair of the psychology department at the University of California, Berkeley. The fifth edition of the APA Style Manual (APA, 2001) details how to prepare the results section, format text and figures, organize your dissertation, and convert it to one or more journal articles. (Check with your department for local variations from APA style.)

That said, proper formatting can only do so much. The key to good data presentation is viable, testable hypotheses, says Hinshaw. "If these are well-specified, and if a coherent data analytic plan is conceptualized and written," he explains, "the data analyses should be relatively straightforward."

When presenting complex relationships or numerous variables, a good chart, table or graph can make all the difference. For guidance on how to pick the right graphic, Zacks recommends psychologically informed books such as Stephen Kosslyn's "Elements of Graph Design" (W.H. Freeman, 1994) and William Cleveland's "The Elements of Graphing Data" (AT&T Bell Laboratories, 1994). More than just effective means of presenting your results, plots can also help you understand your own data, adds Hinshaw.

Not all psychological studies depend on quantitative measurements and statistical significance tests. For the results sections of qualitative studies, careful description and contextualization are most important, says Sue Morrow, PhD, an associate professor of counseling psychology at the University of Utah. As in quantitative studies, charts and graphs can make your results easier for readers to grasp.

Because qualitative methods tend to be less familiar to readers than quantitative methods, as well as harder to summarize with charts or statistics, one of the biggest challenges is conveying your data in a way that readers will understand. To build trust in your analysis, Morrow recommends keeping your results section separate from your discussion, as in quantitative studies, so that readers can distinguish "data-based interpretations" from your own conclusions.

STAY FOCUSED

While complex analyses and formatting guidelines can seem like formidable barriers to writing up your results, nonacademic factors sometimes pose even greater challenges. At this stage in your graduate career, you may have to contend with romantic breakups, family crises and the stresses of finding a job and planning a move--not to mention the ever-present temptation to procrastinate. With all of these distractions, it's important to keeping moving toward the finish line, says Larsen.

Amy L. Conrad, PhD, recently completed her doctorate in counseling psychology at the University of Iowa. When it came time to write up the results of her study on summer camps for children with cancer, she was also finishing her predoctoral internship, applying for postdocs and in her third trimester of pregnancy.

"I knew that it would be extremely difficult to get any work done after my daughter was born, and I wanted to have guilt-free time to enjoy my maternity leave," says Conrad. With the help of strict goal deadlines, constructive feedback and a lot of late-night milkshakes, she says, she finished and defended her dissertation two weeks before her daughter was born.

Etienne Benson is a writer in Cambridge, Mass.

The dissertation, start to finish

This article is the fourth in a six-part gradPSYCH guide to starting, researching, writing and defending your dissertation.

Letters to the Editor

Lab Report Format: Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

In psychology, a lab report outlines a study’s objectives, methods, results, discussion, and conclusions, ensuring clarity and adherence to APA (or relevant) formatting guidelines.

A typical lab report would include the following sections: title, abstract, introduction, method, results, and discussion.

The title page, abstract, references, and appendices are started on separate pages (subsections from the main body of the report are not). Use double-line spacing of text, font size 12, and include page numbers.

The report should have a thread of arguments linking the prediction in the introduction to the content of the discussion.

This must indicate what the study is about. It must include the variables under investigation. It should not be written as a question.

Title pages should be formatted in APA style .

The abstract provides a concise and comprehensive summary of a research report. Your style should be brief but not use note form. Look at examples in journal articles . It should aim to explain very briefly (about 150 words) the following:

• Start with a one/two sentence summary, providing the aim and rationale for the study.
• Describe participants and setting: who, when, where, how many, and what groups?
• Describe the method: what design, what experimental treatment, what questionnaires, surveys, or tests were used.
• Describe the major findings, including a mention of the statistics used and the significance levels, or simply one sentence summing up the outcome.
• The final sentence(s) outline the study’s “contribution to knowledge” within the literature. What does it all mean? Mention the implications of your findings if appropriate.

The abstract comes at the beginning of your report but is written at the end (as it summarises information from all the other sections of the report).

Introduction

The purpose of the introduction is to explain where your hypothesis comes from (i.e., it should provide a rationale for your research study).

Ideally, the introduction should have a funnel structure: Start broad and then become more specific. The aims should not appear out of thin air; the preceding review of psychological literature should lead logically into the aims and hypotheses.

• Start with general theory, briefly introducing the topic. Define the important key terms.
• Explain the theoretical framework.
• Summarise and synthesize previous studies – What was the purpose? Who were the participants? What did they do? What did they find? What do these results mean? How do the results relate to the theoretical framework?
• Rationale: How does the current study address a gap in the literature? Perhaps it overcomes a limitation of previous research.
• Aims and hypothesis. Write a paragraph explaining what you plan to investigate and make a clear and concise prediction regarding the results you expect to find.

There should be a logical progression of ideas that aids the flow of the report. This means the studies outlined should lead logically to your aims and hypotheses.

Do be concise and selective, and avoid the temptation to include anything in case it is relevant (i.e., don’t write a shopping list of studies).

USE THE FOLLOWING SUBHEADINGS:

Participants

• How many participants were recruited?
• Say how you obtained your sample (e.g., opportunity sample).
• Give relevant demographic details (e.g., gender, ethnicity, age range, mean age, and standard deviation).
• State the experimental design .
• What were the independent and dependent variables ? Make sure the independent variable is labeled and name the different conditions/levels.
• For example, if gender is the independent variable label, then male and female are the levels/conditions/groups.
• How were the IV and DV operationalized?
• Identify any controls used, e.g., counterbalancing and control of extraneous variables.
• List all the materials and measures (e.g., what was the title of the questionnaire? Was it adapted from a study?).
• You do not need to include wholesale replication of materials – instead, include a ‘sensible’ (illustrate) level of detail. For example, give examples of questionnaire items.
• Include the reliability (e.g., alpha values) for the measure(s).
• Describe the precise procedure you followed when conducting your research, i.e., exactly what you did.
• Describe in sufficient detail to allow for replication of findings.
• Be concise in your description and omit extraneous/trivial details, e.g., you don’t need to include details regarding instructions, debrief, record sheets, etc.
• Assume the reader has no knowledge of what you did and ensure that he/she can replicate (i.e., copy) your study exactly by what you write in this section.
• Write in the past tense.
• Don’t justify or explain in the Method (e.g., why you chose a particular sampling method); just report what you did.
• Only give enough detail for someone to replicate the experiment – be concise in your writing.
• The results section of a paper usually presents descriptive statistics followed by inferential statistics.
• Report the means, standard deviations, and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for each IV level. If you have four to 20 numbers to present, a well-presented table is best, APA style.
• Name the statistical test being used.
• Report appropriate statistics (e.g., t-scores, p values ).
• Report the magnitude (e.g., are the results significant or not?) as well as the direction of the results (e.g., which group performed better?).
• It is optional to report the effect size (this does not appear on the SPSS output).
• Avoid interpreting the results (save this for the discussion).
• Make sure the results are presented clearly and concisely. A table can be used to display descriptive statistics if this makes the data easier to understand.
• DO NOT include any raw data.
• Follow APA style.

Use APA Style

• Numbers reported to 2 d.p. (incl. 0 before the decimal if 1.00, e.g., “0.51”). The exceptions to this rule: Numbers which can never exceed 1.0 (e.g., p -values, r-values): report to 3 d.p. and do not include 0 before the decimal place, e.g., “.001”.
• Percentages and degrees of freedom: report as whole numbers.
• Statistical symbols that are not Greek letters should be italicized (e.g., M , SD , t , X 2 , F , p , d ).
• Include spaces on either side of the equals sign.
• When reporting 95%, CIs (confidence intervals), upper and lower limits are given inside square brackets, e.g., “95% CI [73.37, 102.23]”
• Outline your findings in plain English (avoid statistical jargon) and relate your results to your hypothesis, e.g., is it supported or rejected?
• Compare your results to background materials from the introduction section. Are your results similar or different? Discuss why/why not.
• How confident can we be in the results? Acknowledge limitations, but only if they can explain the result obtained. If the study has found a reliable effect, be very careful suggesting limitations as you are doubting your results. Unless you can think of any c onfounding variable that can explain the results instead of the IV, it would be advisable to leave the section out.
• Suggest constructive ways to improve your study if appropriate.
• What are the implications of your findings? Say what your findings mean for how people behave in the real world.
• Suggest an idea for further research triggered by your study, something in the same area but not simply an improved version of yours. Perhaps you could base this on a limitation of your study.
• Concluding paragraph – Finish with a statement of your findings and the key points of the discussion (e.g., interpretation and implications) in no more than 3 or 4 sentences.

Reference Page

The reference section lists all the sources cited in the essay (alphabetically). It is not a bibliography (a list of the books you used).

In simple terms, every time you refer to a psychologist’s name (and date), you need to reference the original source of information.

If you have been using textbooks this is easy as the references are usually at the back of the book and you can just copy them down. If you have been using websites then you may have a problem as they might not provide a reference section for you to copy.

References need to be set out APA style :

Author, A. A. (year). Title of work . Location: Publisher.

Journal Articles

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Article title. Journal Title, volume number (issue number), page numbers

A simple way to write your reference section is to use Google scholar . Just type the name and date of the psychologist in the search box and click on the “cite” link.

Next, copy and paste the APA reference into the reference section of your essay.

Once again, remember that references need to be in alphabetical order according to surname.

Psychology Lab Report Example

Quantitative paper template.

Quantitative professional paper template: Adapted from “Fake News, Fast and Slow: Deliberation Reduces Belief in False (but Not True) News Headlines,” by B. Bago, D. G. Rand, and G. Pennycook, 2020,  Journal of Experimental Psychology: General ,  149 (8), pp. 1608–1613 ( https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000729 ). Copyright 2020 by the American Psychological Association.

Qualitative paper template

Qualitative professional paper template: Adapted from “‘My Smartphone Is an Extension of Myself’: A Holistic Qualitative Exploration of the Impact of Using a Smartphone,” by L. J. Harkin and D. Kuss, 2020,  Psychology of Popular Media ,  10 (1), pp. 28–38 ( https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000278 ). Copyright 2020 by the American Psychological Association.

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Chapter 12: Descriptive Statistics

Expressing Your Results

Learning Objectives

• Write out simple descriptive statistics in American Psychological Association (APA) style.
• Interpret and create simple APA-style graphs—including bar graphs, line graphs, and scatterplots.
• Interpret and create simple APA-style tables—including tables of group or condition means and correlation matrixes.

Once you have conducted your descriptive statistical analyses, you will need to present them to others. In this section, we focus on presenting descriptive statistical results in writing, in graphs, and in tables—following American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines for written research reports. These principles can be adapted easily to other presentation formats such as posters and slide show presentations.

Presenting Descriptive Statistics in Writing

When you have a small number of results to report, it is often most efficient to write them out. There are a few important APA style guidelines here. First, statistical results are always presented in the form of numerals rather than words and are usually rounded to two decimal places (e.g., “2.00” rather than “two” or “2”). They can be presented either in the narrative description of the results or parenthetically—much like reference citations. Here are some examples:

The mean age of the participants was 22.43 years with a standard deviation of 2.34.

Among the low self-esteem participants, those in a negative mood expressed stronger intentions to have unprotected sex ( M  = 4.05,  SD  = 2.32) than those in a positive mood ( M  = 2.15,  SD  = 2.27).

The treatment group had a mean of 23.40 ( SD  = 9.33), while the control group had a mean of 20.87 ( SD  = 8.45).

The test-retest correlation was .96.

There was a moderate negative correlation between the alphabetical position of respondents’ last names and their response time ( r  = −.27).

Notice that when presented in the narrative, the terms  mean  and  standard deviation  are written out, but when presented parenthetically, the symbols  M and  SD  are used instead. Notice also that it is especially important to use parallel construction to express similar or comparable results in similar ways. The third example is  much  better than the following nonparallel alternative:

The treatment group had a mean of 23.40 ( SD  = 9.33), while 20.87 was the mean of the control group, which had a standard deviation of 8.45.

Presenting Descriptive Statistics in Graphs

When you have a large number of results to report, you can often do it more clearly and efficiently with a graph. When you prepare graphs for an APA-style research report, there are some general guidelines that you should keep in mind. First, the graph should always add important information rather than repeat information that already appears in the text or in a table. (If a graph presents information more clearly or efficiently, then you should keep the graph and eliminate the text or table.) Second, graphs should be as simple as possible. For example, the  Publication Manual  discourages the use of colour unless it is absolutely necessary (although colour can still be an effective element in posters, slide show presentations, or textbooks.) Third, graphs should be interpretable on their own. A reader should be able to understand the basic result based only on the graph and its caption and should not have to refer to the text for an explanation.

There are also several more technical guidelines for graphs that include the following:

• The graph should be slightly wider than it is tall.
• The independent variable should be plotted on the  x- axis and the dependent variable on the  y- axis.
• Values should increase from left to right on the  x- axis and from bottom to top on the  y- axis.
• Axis labels should be clear and concise and include the units of measurement if they do not appear in the caption.
• Axis labels should be parallel to the axis.
• Legends should appear within the boundaries of the graph.
• Text should be in the same simple font throughout and differ by no more than four points.
• Captions should briefly describe the figure, explain any abbreviations, and include the units of measurement if they do not appear in the axis labels.
• Captions in an APA manuscript should be typed on a separate page that appears at the end of the manuscript. See  Chapter 11 for more information.

As we have seen throughout this book,  bar graphs  are generally used to present and compare the mean scores for two or more groups or conditions. The bar graph in Figure 12.11 is an APA-style version of Figure 12.4. Notice that it conforms to all the guidelines listed. A new element in Figure 12.11 is the smaller vertical bars that extend both upward and downward from the top of each main bar. These are error bars , and they represent the variability in each group or condition. Although they sometimes extend one standard deviation in each direction, they are more likely to extend one standard error in each direction (as in Figure 12.11). The  standard error  is the standard deviation of the group divided by the square root of the sample size of the group. The standard error is used because, in general, a difference between group means that is greater than two standard errors is statistically significant. Thus one can “see” whether a difference is statistically significant based on a bar graph with error bars.

Line Graphs

Line graphs  are used to present correlations between quantitative variables when the independent variable has, or is organized into, a relatively small number of distinct levels. Each point in a line graph represents the mean score on the dependent variable for participants at one level of the independent variable. Figure 12.12 is an APA-style version of the results of Carlson and Conard. Notice that it includes error bars representing the standard error and conforms to all the stated guidelines.

In most cases, the information in a line graph could just as easily be presented in a bar graph. In Figure 12.12, for example, one could replace each point with a bar that reaches up to the same level and leave the error bars right where they are. This emphasizes the fundamental similarity of the two types of statistical relationship. Both are differences in the average score on one variable across levels of another. The convention followed by most researchers, however, is to use a bar graph when the variable plotted on the  x- axis is categorical and a line graph when it is quantitative.

Scatterplots

Scatterplots  are used to present relationships between quantitative variables when the variable on the  x- axis (typically the independent variable) has a large number of levels. Each point in a scatterplot represents an individual rather than the mean for a group of individuals, and there are no lines connecting the points. The graph in Figure 12.13 is an APA-style version of Figure 12.7, which illustrates a few additional points. First, when the variables on the x- axis and  y -axis are conceptually similar and measured on the same scale—as here, where they are measures of the same variable on two different occasions—this can be emphasized by making the axes the same length. Second, when two or more individuals fall at exactly the same point on the graph, one way this can be indicated is by offsetting the points slightly along the  x- axis. Other ways are by displaying the number of individuals in parentheses next to the point or by making the point larger or darker in proportion to the number of individuals. Finally, the straight line that best fits the points in the scatterplot, which is called the regression line, can also be included.

Expressing Descriptive Statistics in Tables

Like graphs, tables can be used to present large amounts of information clearly and efficiently. The same general principles apply to tables as apply to graphs. They should add important information to the presentation of your results, be as simple as possible, and be interpretable on their own. Again, we focus here on tables for an APA-style manuscript.

The most common use of tables is to present several means and standard deviations—usually for complex research designs with multiple independent and dependent variables. Figure 12.14, for example, shows the results of a hypothetical study similar to the one by MacDonald and Martineau (2002) [1] discussed in  Chapter 5 . (The means in Figure 12.14 are the means reported by MacDonald and Martineau, but the standard errors are not). Recall that these researchers categorized participants as having low or high self-esteem, put them into a negative or positive mood, and measured their intentions to have unprotected sex. Although not mentioned in  Chapter 5 , they also measured participants’ attitudes toward unprotected sex. Notice that the table includes horizontal lines spanning the entire table at the top and bottom, and just beneath the column headings. Furthermore, every column has a heading—including the leftmost column—and there are additional headings that span two or more columns that help to organize the information and present it more efficiently. Finally, notice that APA-style tables are numbered consecutively starting at 1 (Table 1, Table 2, and so on) and given a brief but clear and descriptive title.

Another common use of tables is to present correlations—usually measured by Pearson’s  r —among several variables. This kind of table is called a  correlation matrix . Figure 12.15 is a correlation matrix based on a study by David McCabe and colleagues (McCabe, Roediger, McDaniel, Balota, & Hambrick, 2010) [2] . They were interested in the relationships between working memory and several other variables. We can see from the table that the correlation between working memory and executive function, for example, was an extremely strong .96, that the correlation between working memory and vocabulary was a medium .27, and that all the measures except vocabulary tend to decline with age. Notice here that only half the table is filled in because the other half would have identical values. For example, the Pearson’s  r  value in the upper right corner (working memory and age) would be the same as the one in the lower left corner (age and working memory). The correlation of a variable with itself is always 1.00, so these values are replaced by dashes to make the table easier to read.

As with graphs, precise statistical results that appear in a table do not need to be repeated in the text. Instead, the writer can note major trends and alert the reader to details (e.g., specific correlations) that are of particular interest.

Key Takeaways

• In an APA-style article, simple results are most efficiently presented in the text, while more complex results are most efficiently presented in graphs or tables.
• APA style includes several rules for presenting numerical results in the text. These include using words only for numbers less than 10 that do not represent precise statistical results, and rounding results to two decimal places, using words (e.g., “mean”) in the text and symbols (e.g., “ M ”) in parentheses.
• APA style includes several rules for presenting results in graphs and tables. Graphs and tables should add information rather than repeating information, be as simple as possible, and be interpretable on their own with a descriptive caption (for graphs) or a descriptive title (for tables).

Long Descriptions

“Convincing” long description: A four-panel comic strip. In the first panel, a man says to a woman, “I think we should give it another shot.” The woman says, “We should break up, and I can prove it.”

In the second panel, there is a line graph with a downward trend titled “Our Relationship.”

In the third panel, the man, bent over and looking at the graph in the woman’s hands, says, “Huh.”

In the fourth panel, the man says, “Maybe you’re right.” The woman says, “I knew data would convince you.” The man replies, “No, I just think I can do better than someone who doesn’t label her axes.” [Return to “Convincing”]

Figure 12.11 long description: A sample APA-style bar graph, with a horizontal axis labelled “Condition” and a vertical axis labelled “Clinician Rating of Severity.” The caption of the graph says, “Figure X. Mean clinician’s rating of phobia severity for participants receiving the education treatment and the exposure treatment. Error bars represent standard errors.” At the top of each data bar is an error bar, which look likes a capital I: a vertical line with short horizontal lines attached to its top and bottom. The bottom half of each error bar hangs over the top of the data bar, while each top half sticks out the top of the data bar. [Return to Figure 12.11]

Figure 12.12 long description: A sample APA-style line graph with a horizontal axis labelled “Last Name Quartile” and a vertical axis labelled “Response Times (z Scores).” The caption of the graph says, “Figure X. Mean response time by the alphabetical position of respondents’ names in the alphabet. Response times are expressed as z scores. Error bars represent standard errors.” Each data point has an error bar sticking out of its top and bottom. [Return to Figure 12.12]

Figure 12.13 long description: Sample APA-style scatterplot with a horizontal axis labelled “Time 1” and a vertical axis labelled “Time 2.” Each axis has values from 10 to 30. The caption of the scatterplot says, “Figure X. Relationship between scores on the Rosenberg self-esteem scale taken by 25 research methods students on two occasions one week apart. Pearson’s r = .96.” Most of the data points are clustered around the dashed regression line that extends from approximately (12, 11) to (29, 22). [Return to Figure 12.13]

Figure 12.14 long description: Sample APA-style table presenting means and standard deviations. The table is titled “Table X” and is captioned, “Means and Standard Deviations of Intentions to Have Unprotected Sex and Attitudes Toward Unprotected Sex as a Function of Both Mood and Self-Esteem.” The data is organized into negative and positive mood and details intentions and attitudes toward unprotected sex.

Negative mood:

• High—Mean, 2.46
• High—Standard Deviation, 1.97
• Low—Mean, 4.05
• Low—Standard Deviation, 2.32
• High—Mean, 1.65
• High—Standard Deviation, 2.23
• Low—Mean, 1.95
• Low—Standard Deviation, 2.01

Positive mood:

• High—Mean, 2.45
• High—Standard Deviation, 2.00
• Low—Mean, 2.15
• Low—Standard Deviation, 2.27
• High—Mean, 1.82
• High—Standard Deviation, 2.32
• Low—Mean, 1.23
• Low—Standard Deviation, 1.75

[Return to Figure 12.14]

Figure 12.15 long description: Sample APA-style correlation matrix, titled “Table X: Correlations Between Five Cognitive Variables and Age.” The five cognitive variables are:

• Working memory
• Executive function
• Processing speed
• Episodic memory

The data is as such:

Media Attributions

• Convincing by XKCD  CC BY-NC (Attribution NonCommercial)
• MacDonald, T. K., & Martineau, A. M. (2002). Self-esteem, mood, and intentions to use condoms: When does low self-esteem lead to risky health behaviours? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38 , 299–306. ↵
• McCabe, D. P., Roediger, H. L., McDaniel, M. A., Balota, D. A., & Hambrick, D. Z. (2010). The relationship between working memory capacity and executive functioning. Neuropsychology, 24 (2), 222–243. doi:10.1037/a0017619 ↵
• Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: A contextual evolutionary analysis of human mating. Psychological Review, 100 , 204–232. ↵

A figure in which the heights of the bars represent the group means.

Small bars at the top of each main bar in a bar graph that represent the variability in each group or condition.

The standard deviation of the group divided by the square root of the sample size of the group.

A graph used to present correlations between quantitative variables when the independent variable has, or is organized into, a relatively small number of distinct levels.

A graph which shows correlations between quantitative variables; each point represents one person’s score on both variables.

A table showing the correlation between every possible pair of variables in the study.

Research Methods in Psychology - 2nd Canadian Edition Copyright © 2015 by Paul C. Price, Rajiv Jhangiani, & I-Chant A. Chiang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The APA results section is a part of a research paper where the findings and statistical analyses are presented. You should briefly summarize the research outcomes stivking to specific APA style guidelines.

By now you probably have conducted your research and all that’s left is to share your findings in APA Results section. American Psychological Association has established multiple rules for designing your research outcomes. Chances are that you have numerous questions regarding this part of a paper, but only a limited time to find any sound answers. That’s why we have prepared this quick guide. Keep reading and find out what goes in the Result section and how to properly format it in APA writing style . 

APA Results Section: Basics

APA Results section is a part of a research paper where scientists share their findings. After all, it is impossible to tell otherwise about the work’s significance. There is no need to elaborate on your research topic. Rather it just focuses on statistics and numerical data.  APA Results section should provide data that answers your research question. Here’s what you should include in this part of a paper:

• Number of participants
• Descriptive statistical data
• Inferential statistical data
• Missing details
• Side effects
• Written reports.

You should maintain a consistent structure and offer an easy-to-follow flow of ideas. It’s usually written using the past tense. You must present the outcomes of a study that has already been finished.

How to Write Results Section: APA

When designing an APA format Results section, you should work out each block step by step. Let us walk you through each stage of the writing process:

• Preliminary discussion
• Analysis of obtained data
• Presenting your research findings.

Note that these details should only be summarized. Keep interpretations for your Discussion section.

Preliminary Discussion in Your APA Results Section

APA Results section of a research paper should start with a brief reminder. Briefly restate your main goal and hypotheses that you wanted to test. (We have the whole blog on how to write a hypothesis .) Then, you should mention a number of participants, excluded data (if there is any) and adverse effects.  Report how many people participated in your research. A number of participants may vary depending on each stage of your study. This being said, you should explain the reasons for attrition to ensure internal validity.  Your research depends much on how complete your data is. But sometimes, you might lack some necessary equipment or have things going the way you don’t expect. That’s why you should inform your readers about any missing data and reasons behind this. If it’s a clinical research, you should also report any  side effects that have happened.  Pay extra attention to reporting style, as you must convince readers that your research was conducted according to set conditions. Without this, it won’t be possible to achieve a desired result. Wonder how to cite a report APA ? We have a special blog that contains all rules with every detail.

APA Results Section: Summarize Your Data Analysis

Writing the APA results section relies on preparing an explanation of your outcomes. Dry statistics isn’t your best option. Instead, you should make a descriptive analysis of data that you have collected. Introduce descriptive statistics for each type of analysis – preliminary, secondary and subgroup one.  Make sure you properly report descriptive statistics in your APA Results section.  The means of reporting may vary depending on the nature of your data and conditions.

                                                                                                               Means of reporting data

Besides, you should also include such elements:

• Sample sizes
• Measures of central tendency
• Measures of variability (for point estimate).

Provide verified information from trusted sources. Losing your readers’ trust is easy. APA recommends using citations in cases when rare statistics is integrated. However, you shouldn’t bother citing common knowledge. 

Presenting Outcomes in Your APA Results Section

To introduce outcomes in your APA results section, report hypothesis tests. Then, mention if it was confirmed by presenting numbers. Make sure you specify such information:

• Test statistic
• Degree of freedom
• Your p -value
• Magnitude and direction.

Readers don’t have to guess what details you have omitted and should be able to draw conclusions based on real data. Besides, you should estimate effect sizes and provide information on confidence intervals.  There is one good way to organize your statistical results – moving from the most important to the least important. First, you should focus on the primary questions and then address secondary research questions until you cover subgroups. Follow this structure and provide information in stages. Your work formatting is one of the most important steps to success. So, follow American Psychological statistics to cope with numbers.

APA Results Section: How to Format

After having decided on the format of an APA results section, you should consider the  general requirements. The manual contains information about such details:

• Font: Times New Roman.
• Size: 12 pt. font size.
• Spacing: Double-spaced.
• Margins: 1 inch on all sides.

You might also want to integrate visual elements to enhance your research. For example, you can use figures, graphs, charts or tables to present numerical data. According to APA 7th edition, you should create an appendix and make respective references. Number figures and graphs in the order they appear in your APA results section.

APA Results Section: Writing Tips

Before writing the APA results section, make sure that the data is meaningful and can potentially contribute to further research. Academic writing is peculiar as the presentation of information should be carried out according to all rules and requirements. However, this is not the end. A few tips will help to write a worthwhile Results section. Consider the following:

• Tense All outcomes of a study must be described in the past tense, because the objective is to describe the obtained results.
• Brevity Any deviation from a topic is unacceptable, nor the provision of useless information is. Staying on point and being concise is the right decision.
• Objectivity Present an unbiased synopsis of outcomes, as this will allow you to present information in a convenient and useful format. Readers will be grateful.

Preparing a paper takes a lot of effort and this is a good reason to take advantage of the advice from academic professionals.

Example of APA Results Section

Sometimes, all you need to get started is an APA results section example. A decent sample is easy to find here. Pay attention to the key points and keep them in mind as you write. Moreover, you can use this template to format this paper’s part  with APA requirements in mind.

APA Results Section: Final Thoughts

The APA results section requires a special attention from students. Hypothesis and presentation of evidence are the basis for project development. Reporting your main findings in this section will help you prove your hypothesis and enhance your stuy.

Delegate this tedious task to StudyCrumb and get skilled writers to write paper . Our experts have got a solid track record in delivering high-quality research papers in a timely manner and will be eager to help you, too.

Frequently Asked Questions About APA Results Section

1. how many words should an apa results section contain.

An APA results section is presented in a concise style, so the number of words is limited. It shouldn’t exceed 1000 words, which is 2-3 pages of double spaced text. Be specific and don’t deviate from your main point.

2. What’s the difference between APA Results section and APA Discussion section?

APA results section presents the outcomes of research. Here, you should focus on the results, statistical and other data as proof of your hypothesis. A Discussion section, in turn, involves an analysis of findings. In this part of your study, you should evaluate hypotheses and interpret your results.

3. When should I use tables or figures to present numbers in my APA results section?

APA results section includes not only textual information about your research outcomes, but also other ways of presenting information. Create tables, figures and archives to present your findings. Here are several rules you should keep in mind before using visual elements:

• Use sentences to talk about numbers up to 3 components;
• As for converting numbers greater than 20, use a table;
• Charts are worth saving for when there are more than 20 figures.

4. What tense should I use in my results section?

Writing the Results section requires another rule one must follow. Everything should be written in past tense. This way, you will indicate that your research project is complete and that all presented findings are obtained empirically.

Emma Flores knows all about formatting standards. She shares with StudyCrumb readers tips on creating academic papers that will meet high-quality standards.

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Writing a Research Report in American Psychological Association (APA) Style

Learning objectives.

• Identify the major sections of an APA-style research report and the basic contents of each section.
• Plan and write an effective APA-style research report.

In this section, we look at how to write an APA-style empirical research report , an article that presents the results of one or more new studies. Recall that the standard sections of an empirical research report provide a kind of outline. Here we consider each of these sections in detail, including what information it contains, how that information is formatted and organized, and tips for writing each section. At the end of this section is a sample APA-style research report that illustrates many of these principles.

Sections of a Research Report

Title page and abstract.

An APA-style research report begins with a  title page . The title is centred in the upper half of the page, with each important word capitalized. The title should clearly and concisely (in about 12 words or fewer) communicate the primary variables and research questions. This sometimes requires a main title followed by a subtitle that elaborates on the main title, in which case the main title and subtitle are separated by a colon. Here are some titles from recent issues of professional journals published by the American Psychological Association.

• Sex Differences in Coping Styles and Implications for Depressed Mood
• Effects of Aging and Divided Attention on Memory for Items and Their Contexts
• Computer-Assisted Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Child Anxiety: Results of a Randomized Clinical Trial
• Virtual Driving and Risk Taking: Do Racing Games Increase Risk-Taking Cognitions, Affect, and Behaviour?

Below the title are the authors’ names and, on the next line, their institutional affiliation—the university or other institution where the authors worked when they conducted the research. As we have already seen, the authors are listed in an order that reflects their contribution to the research. When multiple authors have made equal contributions to the research, they often list their names alphabetically or in a randomly determined order.

It’s  Soooo  Cute!  How Informal Should an Article Title Be?

In some areas of psychology, the titles of many empirical research reports are informal in a way that is perhaps best described as “cute.” They usually take the form of a play on words or a well-known expression that relates to the topic under study. Here are some examples from recent issues of the Journal Psychological Science .

• “Smells Like Clean Spirit: Nonconscious Effects of Scent on Cognition and Behavior”
• “Time Crawls: The Temporal Resolution of Infants’ Visual Attention”
• “Scent of a Woman: Men’s Testosterone Responses to Olfactory Ovulation Cues”
• “Apocalypse Soon?: Dire Messages Reduce Belief in Global Warming by Contradicting Just-World Beliefs”
• “Serial vs. Parallel Processing: Sometimes They Look Like Tweedledum and Tweedledee but They Can (and Should) Be Distinguished”
• “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Words: The Social Effects of Expressive Writing”

Individual researchers differ quite a bit in their preference for such titles. Some use them regularly, while others never use them. What might be some of the pros and cons of using cute article titles?

For articles that are being submitted for publication, the title page also includes an author note that lists the authors’ full institutional affiliations, any acknowledgments the authors wish to make to agencies that funded the research or to colleagues who commented on it, and contact information for the authors. For student papers that are not being submitted for publication—including theses—author notes are generally not necessary.

The  abstract  is a summary of the study. It is the second page of the manuscript and is headed with the word  Abstract . The first line is not indented. The abstract presents the research question, a summary of the method, the basic results, and the most important conclusions. Because the abstract is usually limited to about 200 words, it can be a challenge to write a good one.

Introduction

The  introduction  begins on the third page of the manuscript. The heading at the top of this page is the full title of the manuscript, with each important word capitalized as on the title page. The introduction includes three distinct subsections, although these are typically not identified by separate headings. The opening introduces the research question and explains why it is interesting, the literature review discusses relevant previous research, and the closing restates the research question and comments on the method used to answer it.

The Opening

The  opening , which is usually a paragraph or two in length, introduces the research question and explains why it is interesting. To capture the reader’s attention, researcher Daryl Bem recommends starting with general observations about the topic under study, expressed in ordinary language (not technical jargon)—observations that are about people and their behaviour (not about researchers or their research; Bem, 2003 [1] ). Concrete examples are often very useful here. According to Bem, this would be a poor way to begin a research report:

Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance received a great deal of attention during the latter part of the 20th century (p. 191)

The following would be much better:

The individual who holds two beliefs that are inconsistent with one another may feel uncomfortable. For example, the person who knows that he or she enjoys smoking but believes it to be unhealthy may experience discomfort arising from the inconsistency or disharmony between these two thoughts or cognitions. This feeling of discomfort was called cognitive dissonance by social psychologist Leon Festinger (1957), who suggested that individuals will be motivated to remove this dissonance in whatever way they can (p. 191).

After capturing the reader’s attention, the opening should go on to introduce the research question and explain why it is interesting. Will the answer fill a gap in the literature? Will it provide a test of an important theory? Does it have practical implications? Giving readers a clear sense of what the research is about and why they should care about it will motivate them to continue reading the literature review—and will help them make sense of it.

Breaking the Rules

Researcher Larry Jacoby reported several studies showing that a word that people see or hear repeatedly can seem more familiar even when they do not recall the repetitions—and that this tendency is especially pronounced among older adults. He opened his article with the following humourous anecdote:

A friend whose mother is suffering symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) tells the story of taking her mother to visit a nursing home, preliminary to her mother’s moving there. During an orientation meeting at the nursing home, the rules and regulations were explained, one of which regarded the dining room. The dining room was described as similar to a fine restaurant except that tipping was not required. The absence of tipping was a central theme in the orientation lecture, mentioned frequently to emphasize the quality of care along with the advantages of having paid in advance. At the end of the meeting, the friend’s mother was asked whether she had any questions. She replied that she only had one question: “Should I tip?” (Jacoby, 1999, p. 3)

Although both humour and personal anecdotes are generally discouraged in APA-style writing, this example is a highly effective way to start because it both engages the reader and provides an excellent real-world example of the topic under study.

The Literature Review

Immediately after the opening comes the  literature review , which describes relevant previous research on the topic and can be anywhere from several paragraphs to several pages in length. However, the literature review is not simply a list of past studies. Instead, it constitutes a kind of argument for why the research question is worth addressing. By the end of the literature review, readers should be convinced that the research question makes sense and that the present study is a logical next step in the ongoing research process.

Like any effective argument, the literature review must have some kind of structure. For example, it might begin by describing a phenomenon in a general way along with several studies that demonstrate it, then describing two or more competing theories of the phenomenon, and finally presenting a hypothesis to test one or more of the theories. Or it might describe one phenomenon, then describe another phenomenon that seems inconsistent with the first one, then propose a theory that resolves the inconsistency, and finally present a hypothesis to test that theory. In applied research, it might describe a phenomenon or theory, then describe how that phenomenon or theory applies to some important real-world situation, and finally suggest a way to test whether it does, in fact, apply to that situation.

Looking at the literature review in this way emphasizes a few things. First, it is extremely important to start with an outline of the main points that you want to make, organized in the order that you want to make them. The basic structure of your argument, then, should be apparent from the outline itself. Second, it is important to emphasize the structure of your argument in your writing. One way to do this is to begin the literature review by summarizing your argument even before you begin to make it. “In this article, I will describe two apparently contradictory phenomena, present a new theory that has the potential to resolve the apparent contradiction, and finally present a novel hypothesis to test the theory.” Another way is to open each paragraph with a sentence that summarizes the main point of the paragraph and links it to the preceding points. These opening sentences provide the “transitions” that many beginning researchers have difficulty with. Instead of beginning a paragraph by launching into a description of a previous study, such as “Williams (2004) found that…,” it is better to start by indicating something about why you are describing this particular study. Here are some simple examples:

Another example of this phenomenon comes from the work of Williams (2004).

Williams (2004) offers one explanation of this phenomenon.

An alternative perspective has been provided by Williams (2004).

We used a method based on the one used by Williams (2004).

Finally, remember that your goal is to construct an argument for why your research question is interesting and worth addressing—not necessarily why your favourite answer to it is correct. In other words, your literature review must be balanced. If you want to emphasize the generality of a phenomenon, then of course you should discuss various studies that have demonstrated it. However, if there are other studies that have failed to demonstrate it, you should discuss them too. Or if you are proposing a new theory, then of course you should discuss findings that are consistent with that theory. However, if there are other findings that are inconsistent with it, again, you should discuss them too. It is acceptable to argue that the  balance  of the research supports the existence of a phenomenon or is consistent with a theory (and that is usually the best that researchers in psychology can hope for), but it is not acceptable to  ignore contradictory evidence. Besides, a large part of what makes a research question interesting is uncertainty about its answer.

The Closing

The  closing  of the introduction—typically the final paragraph or two—usually includes two important elements. The first is a clear statement of the main research question or hypothesis. This statement tends to be more formal and precise than in the opening and is often expressed in terms of operational definitions of the key variables. The second is a brief overview of the method and some comment on its appropriateness. Here, for example, is how Darley and Latané (1968) [2] concluded the introduction to their classic article on the bystander effect:

These considerations lead to the hypothesis that the more bystanders to an emergency, the less likely, or the more slowly, any one bystander will intervene to provide aid. To test this proposition it would be necessary to create a situation in which a realistic “emergency” could plausibly occur. Each subject should also be blocked from communicating with others to prevent his getting information about their behaviour during the emergency. Finally, the experimental situation should allow for the assessment of the speed and frequency of the subjects’ reaction to the emergency. The experiment reported below attempted to fulfill these conditions. (p. 378)

Thus the introduction leads smoothly into the next major section of the article—the method section.

The  method section  is where you describe how you conducted your study. An important principle for writing a method section is that it should be clear and detailed enough that other researchers could replicate the study by following your “recipe.” This means that it must describe all the important elements of the study—basic demographic characteristics of the participants, how they were recruited, whether they were randomly assigned, how the variables were manipulated or measured, how counterbalancing was accomplished, and so on. At the same time, it should avoid irrelevant details such as the fact that the study was conducted in Classroom 37B of the Industrial Technology Building or that the questionnaire was double-sided and completed using pencils.

The method section begins immediately after the introduction ends with the heading “Method” (not “Methods”) centred on the page. Immediately after this is the subheading “Participants,” left justified and in italics. The participants subsection indicates how many participants there were, the number of women and men, some indication of their age, other demographics that may be relevant to the study, and how they were recruited, including any incentives given for participation.

After the participants section, the structure can vary a bit. Figure 11.1 shows three common approaches. In the first, the participants section is followed by a design and procedure subsection, which describes the rest of the method. This works well for methods that are relatively simple and can be described adequately in a few paragraphs. In the second approach, the participants section is followed by separate design and procedure subsections. This works well when both the design and the procedure are relatively complicated and each requires multiple paragraphs.

What is the difference between design and procedure? The design of a study is its overall structure. What were the independent and dependent variables? Was the independent variable manipulated, and if so, was it manipulated between or within subjects? How were the variables operationally defined? The procedure is how the study was carried out. It often works well to describe the procedure in terms of what the participants did rather than what the researchers did. For example, the participants gave their informed consent, read a set of instructions, completed a block of four practice trials, completed a block of 20 test trials, completed two questionnaires, and were debriefed and excused.

In the third basic way to organize a method section, the participants subsection is followed by a materials subsection before the design and procedure subsections. This works well when there are complicated materials to describe. This might mean multiple questionnaires, written vignettes that participants read and respond to, perceptual stimuli, and so on. The heading of this subsection can be modified to reflect its content. Instead of “Materials,” it can be “Questionnaires,” “Stimuli,” and so on.

The  results section  is where you present the main results of the study, including the results of the statistical analyses. Although it does not include the raw data—individual participants’ responses or scores—researchers should save their raw data and make them available to other researchers who request them. Several journals now encourage the open sharing of raw data online.

Although there are no standard subsections, it is still important for the results section to be logically organized. Typically it begins with certain preliminary issues. One is whether any participants or responses were excluded from the analyses and why. The rationale for excluding data should be described clearly so that other researchers can decide whether it is appropriate. A second preliminary issue is how multiple responses were combined to produce the primary variables in the analyses. For example, if participants rated the attractiveness of 20 stimulus people, you might have to explain that you began by computing the mean attractiveness rating for each participant. Or if they recalled as many items as they could from study list of 20 words, did you count the number correctly recalled, compute the percentage correctly recalled, or perhaps compute the number correct minus the number incorrect? A third preliminary issue is the reliability of the measures. This is where you would present test-retest correlations, Cronbach’s α, or other statistics to show that the measures are consistent across time and across items. A final preliminary issue is whether the manipulation was successful. This is where you would report the results of any manipulation checks.

The results section should then tackle the primary research questions, one at a time. Again, there should be a clear organization. One approach would be to answer the most general questions and then proceed to answer more specific ones. Another would be to answer the main question first and then to answer secondary ones. Regardless, Bem (2003) [3] suggests the following basic structure for discussing each new result:

• Remind the reader of the research question.
• Give the answer to the research question in words.
• Present the relevant statistics.
• Qualify the answer if necessary.
• Summarize the result.

Notice that only Step 3 necessarily involves numbers. The rest of the steps involve presenting the research question and the answer to it in words. In fact, the basic results should be clear even to a reader who skips over the numbers.

The  discussion  is the last major section of the research report. Discussions usually consist of some combination of the following elements:

• Summary of the research
• Theoretical implications
• Practical implications
• Limitations
• Suggestions for future research

The discussion typically begins with a summary of the study that provides a clear answer to the research question. In a short report with a single study, this might require no more than a sentence. In a longer report with multiple studies, it might require a paragraph or even two. The summary is often followed by a discussion of the theoretical implications of the research. Do the results provide support for any existing theories? If not, how  can  they be explained? Although you do not have to provide a definitive explanation or detailed theory for your results, you at least need to outline one or more possible explanations. In applied research—and often in basic research—there is also some discussion of the practical implications of the research. How can the results be used, and by whom, to accomplish some real-world goal?

The theoretical and practical implications are often followed by a discussion of the study’s limitations. Perhaps there are problems with its internal or external validity. Perhaps the manipulation was not very effective or the measures not very reliable. Perhaps there is some evidence that participants did not fully understand their task or that they were suspicious of the intent of the researchers. Now is the time to discuss these issues and how they might have affected the results. But do not overdo it. All studies have limitations, and most readers will understand that a different sample or different measures might have produced different results. Unless there is good reason to think they  would have, however, there is no reason to mention these routine issues. Instead, pick two or three limitations that seem like they could have influenced the results, explain how they could have influenced the results, and suggest ways to deal with them.

Most discussions end with some suggestions for future research. If the study did not satisfactorily answer the original research question, what will it take to do so? What  new  research questions has the study raised? This part of the discussion, however, is not just a list of new questions. It is a discussion of two or three of the most important unresolved issues. This means identifying and clarifying each question, suggesting some alternative answers, and even suggesting ways they could be studied.

Finally, some researchers are quite good at ending their articles with a sweeping or thought-provoking conclusion. Darley and Latané (1968) [4] , for example, ended their article on the bystander effect by discussing the idea that whether people help others may depend more on the situation than on their personalities. Their final sentence is, “If people understand the situational forces that can make them hesitate to intervene, they may better overcome them” (p. 383). However, this kind of ending can be difficult to pull off. It can sound overreaching or just banal and end up detracting from the overall impact of the article. It is often better simply to end when you have made your final point (although you should avoid ending on a limitation).

The references section begins on a new page with the heading “References” centred at the top of the page. All references cited in the text are then listed in the format presented earlier. They are listed alphabetically by the last name of the first author. If two sources have the same first author, they are listed alphabetically by the last name of the second author. If all the authors are the same, then they are listed chronologically by the year of publication. Everything in the reference list is double-spaced both within and between references.

Appendices, Tables, and Figures

Appendices, tables, and figures come after the references. An  appendix  is appropriate for supplemental material that would interrupt the flow of the research report if it were presented within any of the major sections. An appendix could be used to present lists of stimulus words, questionnaire items, detailed descriptions of special equipment or unusual statistical analyses, or references to the studies that are included in a meta-analysis. Each appendix begins on a new page. If there is only one, the heading is “Appendix,” centred at the top of the page. If there is more than one, the headings are “Appendix A,” “Appendix B,” and so on, and they appear in the order they were first mentioned in the text of the report.

After any appendices come tables and then figures. Tables and figures are both used to present results. Figures can also be used to illustrate theories (e.g., in the form of a flowchart), display stimuli, outline procedures, and present many other kinds of information. Each table and figure appears on its own page. Tables are numbered in the order that they are first mentioned in the text (“Table 1,” “Table 2,” and so on). Figures are numbered the same way (“Figure 1,” “Figure 2,” and so on). A brief explanatory title, with the important words capitalized, appears above each table. Each figure is given a brief explanatory caption, where (aside from proper nouns or names) only the first word of each sentence is capitalized. More details on preparing APA-style tables and figures are presented later in the book.

Sample APA-Style Research Report

Figures 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, and 11.5 show some sample pages from an APA-style empirical research report originally written by undergraduate student Tomoe Suyama at California State University, Fresno. The main purpose of these figures is to illustrate the basic organization and formatting of an APA-style empirical research report, although many high-level and low-level style conventions can be seen here too.

Key Takeaways

• An APA-style empirical research report consists of several standard sections. The main ones are the abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion, and references.
• The introduction consists of an opening that presents the research question, a literature review that describes previous research on the topic, and a closing that restates the research question and comments on the method. The literature review constitutes an argument for why the current study is worth doing.
• The method section describes the method in enough detail that another researcher could replicate the study. At a minimum, it consists of a participants subsection and a design and procedure subsection.
• The results section describes the results in an organized fashion. Each primary result is presented in terms of statistical results but also explained in words.
• The discussion typically summarizes the study, discusses theoretical and practical implications and limitations of the study, and offers suggestions for further research.
• Practice: Look through an issue of a general interest professional journal (e.g.,  Psychological Science ). Read the opening of the first five articles and rate the effectiveness of each one from 1 ( very ineffective ) to 5 ( very effective ). Write a sentence or two explaining each rating.
• Practice: Find a recent article in a professional journal and identify where the opening, literature review, and closing of the introduction begin and end.
• Practice: Find a recent article in a professional journal and highlight in a different colour each of the following elements in the discussion: summary, theoretical implications, practical implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research.
• Bem, D. J. (2003). Writing the empirical journal article. In J. M. Darley, M. P. Zanna, & H. R. Roediger III (Eds.),  The compleat academic: A practical guide for the beginning social scientist  (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. ↵
• Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4 , 377–383. ↵

Research Methods in Psychology Copyright © 2015 by Paul C. Price, Rajiv Jhangiani, & I-Chant A. Chiang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Results Section

The results section is where you tell the reader the basic descriptive information about the scales you used (report the mean and standard deviation for each scale).   If you have more than 3 or 4 variables in your paper, you might want to put this descriptive information in a table to keep the text from being too choppy and bogged down (see the APA manual for ideas on creating good tables).   In the results section, you also tell the reader what statistics you conducted to test your hypothesis (-ses) and what the results indicated.   In this paper, you conducted bivariate correlation(s) to test your hypothesis.

Include in Results (include the following in this order in your results section):

   Give the descriptive statistics for the relevant variables (mean, standard deviation).  

   Provide a brief rephrasing of your hypothesis(es) (avoid exact restatement).   Then tell the reader what statistical test you used to test your hypothesis and what you found.

   Explain which correlations were in the predicted direction, and which were not (if any).   Were differences statistically significant (i.e., p < .05 or below)?   Don't merely give the statistics without any explanation.   Whenever you make a claim that there is (or is not) a significant correlation between X and Y, the reader has to be able to verify it by looking at the appropriate test statistic.   For example do not report “The correlation between private self-consciousness and college adjustment was r = - .26, p < .01.” In general, you should not use numbers as part of a sentence in this way. Instead, interpret important data for the reader and use words throughout your sentences: “The negative correlation between private self-consciousness and college adjustment indicated that the more participants felt self-conscious, the worse their adjustment to college, r = - .26, p < .01”

   However, don't try to interpret why you got the results you did.   Leave that to the Discussion.

   Note : Be sure to underline all abbreviations of test statistics (e.g., M for mean and SD for standard deviation). See pages 112-118 of the APA manual for more on reporting statistics in text.

Some specifics:

     For each correlation, you need to report the following information either in the text of your paper or in a table: correlation coefficient, significance level (p value).  

     If you are reporting a single correlation for the whole results section, report it in the text of the paper as follows:     r =.26, p < .01    or     r = -.11, n.s.

   Use n.s. if not significant; or use whichever of the following is most accurate:

              p < .05;   p < .01;   p < .001

   If your correlation was non significant, but p < .10 you can still talk about it.   You might put the following text in your paper:   “While the correlation was not significant relative to the standard alpha level of .05, the p-value was less than .10.” Then provide a rationale for why you should still be able to discuss this non-significant correlation (see your hypothesis testing lecture notes).   You may then cautiously interpret such a correlation. Don’t make grand conclusions or use strong language based on the existence of a marginally significant finding. Also, you should indicate that a marginal correlation is non -significant in a table; only refer to the correlation as “approaching significance” in the text of the paper .

If you computed two or more correlations (thus involving at least three variables) provide a   table at the end of the paper (ordinarily tables would only be used for even more complex findings, but I'd like you to practice since you have a few correlations to work with).   Create a correlation matrix like the example (see Table 1).   If you include a correlation matrix table, you should, in the text of the result section, refer readers to your table instead of typing out the r and the p value for each correlation. If you are using Word as your word processor, create the table, then you can adjust the "borders and shading" for each cell/row/column to get the table formatted properly.   I can show you how if you have trouble. Other word processors should have similar functions.

This Table is an Example of a Correlation Matrix among Three Variables for an Imaginary Sample of College Students (n = 129).

* p < .05;   **p < .01

=====================================================================

You need to report the statistics in some way in your result section, but regardless of whether you use a table or type the statistics in the text, you should also interpret the correlation for the reader… say exactly what that means:

E.g.   “As expected, college adjustment was positively correlated with the amount of contact with friends and family members (see Table 1).”   

E.g.   “No significant relationship was found between the importance of one's social life and social adjustment to college, r = -.11, n.s.

E.g.   “As shown in Table 1, some of my predictions were supported.   There was a significant correlation between extroversion and life satisfaction.   However, life satisfaction was not significantly related to college adjustment.”

See your text, APA manual, and Sample Paper (“The Title of the Paper”) for more information and suggestions.   In general, I would suggest writing the words of the results section first, and then going back to insert the numbers and statistical information.

Discussion section

In your discussion section, relate the results back to your initial hypotheses.   Do they support or disconfirm them?   Remember: Results do not prove hypotheses right or wrong, they support them or fail to provide support for them.

I suggest the following information in the following order:

   Provide a very brief summary of the most important parts of the introduction and then the results sections. In doing so, you should relate the results to the theories you introduced in the Introduction. Your findings are just one piece among many -- resist the tendency to make your results the final story about the   phenomenon or theory of interest.   Integrate the results and try to make sense of the pattern of the findings.

   In the case of a correlational project, be careful to not use causal language to discuss your results – unless you did an experiment you cannot infer causality. However, it would be impossible to fully discuss the implications of your results without making reference to causality. That is fine. Just don't claim that your results themselves are demonstrating causality.

   If your findings did not support your hypotheses, speculate why that might be so.   You might reconsider the logic of your hypotheses.   Or, reconsider whether the variables are adequately measuring the relationship.   For example, if you hypothesized a relationship between anger toward the stigmatized and narcissism and didn’t find it – consider whether anger is really the right variable... perhaps "disgust" would better capture the relationship. Alternatively, you might also consider whether the relationship you hypothesized might only show up in certain populations of people or under certain conditions (e.g., self-threat). Where possible, support your speculation with references.

   Talk about any qualifications important to your findings (all studies have weaknesses/qualifications). This includes alternative explanations for the results.   For example, you might speculate about an unexamined third variable that was not present in you study.   However, BE SPECIFIC and back up any assertions you make.   For example, if you claim that 3 rd variables might affect your correlations, tell me what they are and how they would affect your correlations.

   Speculate about future directions that research could take to further investigate your question. This might relate back to any weaknesses you’ve mentioned above (or reasons why the results didn’t turn out as expected).   Future directions may also include interesting next steps in the research.

   A discussion section is about “what we have learned so far”; and “where we should go next”;   Your final conclusion should talk briefly about the broader significance of your findings.   What do they imply about human nature or some aspect of it? (Don't wildly speculate, however!) Leave the reader feeling like this is an important topic... you will likely refer back to your opening paragraph of the introduction here and have partial answers or more specific responses to the questions you posed.

Important Parts of the Paper – Don’t Forget Them!!

Title page -   Try to write a title that maximally informs the reader about the topic, without being ridiculously long. Use titles of articles you've read as examples of form. Also provide the RUNNING HEAD and an abbreviated title that appears in the header of each page along with the page number. Provide your name and institutional affiliation (Hanover College). See APA Manual and sample paper.

Abstract - Write the abstract LAST. An abstract is a super-short summary and is difficult to write.

Info on abstracts from APA manual:

An abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of an article, allowing readers to survey the contents quickly.

A good abstract is:

   accurate : Ensure that your abstract correctly reflects the purpose and content of your paper.   Do not include information that does not appear in the body of the paper.

   self-contained :   Define all abbreviations and acronyms.   Spell out names of tests/ questionnaires.   Define unique terms.   Paraphrase rather than quote.  

   concise and specific : Make each sentence maximally informative, especially the lead sentence.   Begin the abstract with the most important information (your question), but do not repeat the title.   Be as brief as possible.

   non-evaluative : Report rather than evaluate: do not add to or comment on what is in the body of the manuscript.

   coherent and readable : Write in clear and vigorous prose. Use the third person rather than the first person.

In less than 150 words your abstract should describe:

   the problem under investigation (an "introduction" type sentence)

   the specific variables investigated and the method of doing so (a "method" type sentence)

   the results of the study in brief (no numbers, just words)

   a hint about the general direction the discussion section takes

References : Use APA style.   See your APA manual, textbook and the sample paper for examples of how to cite and how to make a reference list.   Make sure that all references mentioned in the text are also mentioned in the reference list and vice versa.

Tables and/or Figures :   Use APA style. Tables go at the very end of your paper.   Make sure you refer to the table or figure in the text of your paper.  

*See APA Manual, textbook and sample paper for information on how to format each section of your paper and how to order the sections.

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APA Results Section – Explanation & Examples

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The APA results section summarizes data and includes reporting statistics in a quantitative research study. The APA results section is an essential part of your research paper and typically begins with a brief overview of the data followed by a systematic and detailed reporting of each hypothesis tested. The interpreted results will then be presented in the discussion sections. Ensure you adhere to APA style guidelines consistently throughout the paper.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• 1 APA Results Section – In a Nutshell
• 2 Definition: APA results section
• 3 What’s included in the APA results section?
• 4 APA results section: Introducing the data
• 5 APA results section: Summarizing the data
• 6 APA results section: Reporting the results
• 7 APA results section: Formatting numbers
• 8 APA results section: Don’t include these

APA Results Section – In a Nutshell

• The APA results section of empirical manuscripts reports the quantitative results of a study conducted on a data set.
• The APA results section provides concrete evidence to disprove or confirm the hypothesis.

Definition: APA results section

The American Psychological Association recommends the APA style guide for presenting results in a manuscript. A research manuscript’s APA results section describes the researcher’s findings following a thorough data analysis and interpretation of the results. It uses obtained data to test or refute the theory of a research study.

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What’s included in the APA results section?

The APA results section includes preliminary details on the data, participants, statistics , and the results of the explanatory analysis , as discussed below.

• Participants – The number of participants is reported at every study stage
• Missing data – Identifying the amount of data excluded from the final analysis.
• Adverse effects – Report any unforeseen events for clinical studies
• Descriptive statistics – Summarize the secondary and primary outcomes of a study
• Inferential statistics – Helps researchers draw conclusions and make predictions from the data.
• Confidence interval and effect size  – Confidence intervals are a range of possible values for the data set mean.
• Results of explanatory analysis – An exploratory research investigates data to test a hypothesis, check assumptions, and find anomalies.

APA results section: Introducing the data

Before you discuss your research findings, start by clearly describing the participants at each study stage. If any data was excluded from the eventual analysis, indicate that too.

Participants

Recruitment, participant flow, and attrition should be reported. Attrition bias affects external and internal validity and produces erroneous results.

A flow chart is often the best way to report the number of participants per group per stage and their reasons for attrition. Below is an example of how to report participant flow.

• 25% of the 400 participants who signed up and completed the first survey were eliminated for not fitting the research criteria.
• 15% didn’t use fiber optics internet exclusively.
• 10% did not have internet access.
• 300 participants progressed to the final survey round for a gift bag.
• 52 people didn’t complete the survey.

This resulted in 248 research participants.

Missing data & adverse effects

In any study, missing data must be reported. Unexpected events, poor storage, and equipment failures can cause missing data. In any instance, clearly explain why you couldn’t use the data.

Data outliers can be excluded from the final study, but you must explain why. Include how you handled missing data. Standard procedures include mean-value imputation, interpolation, extrapolation, and substitution.

• Results of 33 participants were excluded from the study as they did not meet the research criteria.
• The data for another 4 participants were lost due to human error.

APA results section: Summarizing the data

It is important to note that you should provide a summary of your study’s results. However, you can create a supplemental archive for other researchers to access raw data. 2

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics are concise coefficients that summarize a specific data collection , such as a population sample or APA results section. APA results section can include descriptive statistics such as:

• Central tendency measures describe a data set by identifying the center of the data set. ( mode , median, mean )
• Measures of variability describe the score dispersion within a data set. ( standard deviation , range, variance , and interquartile range )
• Sample sizes
• Variables of interest, which are measured, changing quantities in experimental studies. Be sure to explain how you operationalized any variable of interest you use.
• 20 athletes in five trials were given 400 mg of a performance-enhancing substance to measure their speed (m/s ) and reaction time(s).
• After averaging each athlete’s speed and response time, the group’s averages were calculated.

The group that used the performance-enhancing drug had a higher speed (m/s) than the group that did not use the drug ( M = 4, SD=1.25 )

APA results section: Reporting the results

APA journal standards require all the appropriate hypothesis tests, confidence intervals, and effect size estimates to be reported in the APA results section.

Inferential statistics

Inferential statistics help researchers draw conclusions and make predictions based on the data.

When you are reporting the inferential statistics in the APA results section, use the following:

• Degrees of freedom
• Test statistic (includes the z-score, t-value, and f-ratio )
• Error term (if needed, though it is not included in correlations and non-parametric tests.)
• The exact p-value (unless . 001)

In keeping with the hypotheses, athletes who take performance-enhancing drugs have increased reaction times, and speeds, t (20) = 1s , p .001

Confidence intervals & effect sizes

A confidence interval can be described as a range of possible values for the mean derived from the sample data. It helps show the variability that is around point estimates. You should include confidence intervals any time you report estimates for population parameters.

Night guards consume an average of 600 mg of caffeine weekly, 93% CI [90, 200}

Effect size measures an experiment’s magnitude. It explains the research’s significance. Since effect size is an estimate, confidence intervals should be included.

Moderate amounts of performance-enhancing drugs increase speed significantly, Cohen’s d =1.4, 93% CI [0.92, 1.57]

Subgroup & exploratory analyses

Exploratory analysis tests a hypothesis, checks assumptions , and finds patterns and anomalies in data . If you find notable results, report them as exploratory, not confirming, to avoid overstating their value.

APA results section: Formatting numbers

Use figures, text, and tables to show numbers in APA results sections properly.

✓ For three or fewer numbers, use a sentence, a table for 4 and 20 numbers, and a figure for more than 20 .

✓ Number and title the APA tables and figures , as well as relevant notes. If you have already presented the data in a table, do not repeat it in a figure and vice versa.

✓ Statistics in your APA results section must be abbreviated, capitalized, and italicized.

✓ Use APA norms for reporting statistics and writing numbers.

✓ Look up these guidelines if you are unsure how to present certain symbols.

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APA results section: Don’t include these

Besides knowing what to include in an APA results section, it is just as important to know what not to have. Below is an outline of what you should exclude from an APA results section.

What should be included in the APA results section?

The APA results section should include details on the participants, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics , missing data , and the results of any exploratory analysis.

What tense should I use to write my results?

Write the APA results section in the past tense.

When should I include tables and figures?

Include tables and figures if you will discuss them in the body text of the APA results section.

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• APA Style 7th edition
• How to write an APA methods section

How to Write an APA Methods Section | With Examples

Published on February 5, 2021 by Pritha Bhandari . Revised on June 22, 2023.

The methods section of an APA style paper is where you report in detail how you performed your study. Research papers in the social and natural sciences often follow APA style. This article focuses on reporting quantitative research methods .

In your APA methods section, you should report enough information to understand and replicate your study, including detailed information on the sample , measures, and procedures used.

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Table of contents

Structuring an apa methods section.

Participants

Example of an APA methods section

Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an apa methods section.

The main heading of “Methods” should be centered, boldfaced, and capitalized. Subheadings within this section are left-aligned, boldfaced, and in title case. You can also add lower level headings within these subsections, as long as they follow APA heading styles .

To structure your methods section, you can use the subheadings of “Participants,” “Materials,” and “Procedures.” These headings are not mandatory—aim to organize your methods section using subheadings that make sense for your specific study.

Note that not all of these topics will necessarily be relevant for your study. For example, if you didn’t need to consider outlier removal or ways of assigning participants to different conditions, you don’t have to report these steps.

The APA also provides specific reporting guidelines for different types of research design. These tell you exactly what you need to report for longitudinal designs , replication studies, experimental designs , and so on. If your study uses a combination design, consult APA guidelines for mixed methods studies.

Detailed descriptions of procedures that don’t fit into your main text can be placed in supplemental materials (for example, the exact instructions and tasks given to participants, the full analytical strategy including software code, or additional figures and tables).

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Begin the methods section by reporting sample characteristics, sampling procedures, and the sample size.

Participant or subject characteristics

When discussing people who participate in research, descriptive terms like “participants,” “subjects” and “respondents” can be used. For non-human animal research, “subjects” is more appropriate.

Specify all relevant demographic characteristics of your participants. This may include their age, sex, ethnic or racial group, gender identity, education level, and socioeconomic status. Depending on your study topic, other characteristics like educational or immigration status or language preference may also be relevant.

Be sure to report these characteristics as precisely as possible. This helps the reader understand how far your results may be generalized to other people.

The APA guidelines emphasize writing about participants using bias-free language , so it’s necessary to use inclusive and appropriate terms.

Sampling procedures

Outline how the participants were selected and all inclusion and exclusion criteria applied. Appropriately identify the sampling procedure used. For example, you should only label a sample as random  if you had access to every member of the relevant population.

Of all the people invited to participate in your study, note the percentage that actually did (if you have this data). Additionally, report whether participants were self-selected, either by themselves or by their institutions (e.g., schools may submit student data for research purposes).

Identify any compensation (e.g., course credits or money) that was provided to participants, and mention any institutional review board approvals and ethical standards followed.

Sample size and power

Detail the sample size (per condition) and statistical power that you hoped to achieve, as well as any analyses you performed to determine these numbers.

It’s important to show that your study had enough statistical power to find effects if there were any to be found.

Additionally, state whether your final sample differed from the intended sample. Your interpretations of the study outcomes should be based only on your final sample rather than your intended sample.

Write up the tools and techniques that you used to measure relevant variables. Be as thorough as possible for a complete picture of your techniques.

Primary and secondary measures

Define the primary and secondary outcome measures that will help you answer your primary and secondary research questions.

Specify all instruments used in gathering these measurements and the construct that they measure. These instruments may include hardware, software, or tests, scales, and inventories.

• To cite hardware, indicate the model number and manufacturer.
• To cite common software (e.g., Qualtrics), state the full name along with the version number or the website URL .
• To cite tests, scales or inventories, reference its manual or the article it was published in. It’s also helpful to state the number of items and provide one or two example items.

Make sure to report the settings of (e.g., screen resolution) any specialized apparatus used.

For each instrument used, report measures of the following:

• Reliability : how consistently the method measures something, in terms of internal consistency or test-retest reliability.
• Validity : how precisely the method measures something, in terms of construct validity  or criterion validity .

Giving an example item or two for tests, questionnaires , and interviews is also helpful.

Describe any covariates—these are any additional variables that may explain or predict the outcomes.

Quality of measurements

Review all methods you used to assure the quality of your measurements.

These may include:

• training researchers to collect data reliably,
• using multiple people to assess (e.g., observe or code) the data,
• translation and back-translation of research materials,
• using pilot studies to test your materials on unrelated samples.

For data that’s subjectively coded (for example, classifying open-ended responses), report interrater reliability scores. This tells the reader how similarly each response was rated by multiple raters.

Report all of the procedures applied for administering the study, processing the data, and for planned data analyses.

Data collection methods and research design

Data collection methods refers to the general mode of the instruments: surveys, interviews, observations, focus groups, neuroimaging, cognitive tests, and so on. Summarize exactly how you collected the necessary data.

Describe all procedures you applied in administering surveys, tests, physical recordings, or imaging devices, with enough detail so that someone else can replicate your techniques. If your procedures are very complicated and require long descriptions (e.g., in neuroimaging studies), place these details in supplementary materials.

To report research design, note your overall framework for data collection and analysis. State whether you used an experimental, quasi-experimental, descriptive (observational), correlational, and/or longitudinal design. Also note whether a between-subjects or a within-subjects design was used.

For multi-group studies, report the following design and procedural details as well:

• how participants were assigned to different conditions (e.g., randomization),
• instructions given to the participants in each group,
• interventions for each group,
• the setting and length of each session(s).

Describe whether any masking was used to hide the condition assignment (e.g., placebo or medication condition) from participants or research administrators. Using masking in a multi-group study ensures internal validity by reducing research bias . Explain how this masking was applied and whether its effectiveness was assessed.

Participants were randomly assigned to a control or experimental condition. The survey was administered using Qualtrics (https://www.qualtrics.com). To begin, all participants were given the AAI and a demographics questionnaire to complete, followed by an unrelated filler task. In the control condition , participants completed a short general knowledge test immediately after the filler task. In the experimental condition, participants were asked to visualize themselves taking the test for 3 minutes before they actually did. For more details on the exact instructions and tasks given, see supplementary materials.

Data diagnostics

Outline all steps taken to scrutinize or process the data after collection.

This includes the following:

• Procedures for identifying and removing outliers
• Data transformations to normalize distributions
• Compensation strategies for overcoming missing values

To ensure high validity, you should provide enough detail for your reader to understand how and why you processed or transformed your raw data in these specific ways.

Analytic strategies

The methods section is also where you describe your statistical analysis procedures, but not their outcomes. Their outcomes are reported in the results section.

These procedures should be stated for all primary, secondary, and exploratory hypotheses. While primary and secondary hypotheses are based on a theoretical framework or past studies, exploratory hypotheses are guided by the data you’ve just collected.

This annotated example reports methods for a descriptive correlational survey on the relationship between religiosity and trust in science in the US. Hover over each part for explanation of what is included.

The sample included 879 adults aged between 18 and 28. More than half of the participants were women (56%), and all participants had completed at least 12 years of education. Ethics approval was obtained from the university board before recruitment began. Participants were recruited online through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk; www.mturk.com). We selected for a geographically diverse sample within the Midwest of the US through an initial screening survey. Participants were paid USD $5 upon completion of the study.

A sample size of at least 783 was deemed necessary for detecting a correlation coefficient of ±.1, with a power level of 80% and a significance level of .05, using a sample size calculator (www.sample-size.net/correlation-sample-size/).

The primary outcome measures were the levels of religiosity and trust in science. Religiosity refers to involvement and belief in religious traditions, while trust in science represents confidence in scientists and scientific research outcomes. The secondary outcome measures were gender and parental education levels of participants and whether these characteristics predicted religiosity levels.

Religiosity

Religiosity was measured using the Centrality of Religiosity scale (Huber, 2003). The Likert scale is made up of 15 questions with five subscales of ideology, experience, intellect, public practice, and private practice. An example item is “How often do you experience situations in which you have the feeling that God or something divine intervenes in your life?” Participants were asked to indicate frequency of occurrence by selecting a response ranging from 1 (very often) to 5 (never). The internal consistency of the instrument is .83 (Huber & Huber, 2012).

Trust in Science

Trust in science was assessed using the General Trust in Science index (McCright, Dentzman, Charters & Dietz, 2013). Four Likert scale items were assessed on a scale from 1 (completely distrust) to 5 (completely trust). An example question asks “How much do you distrust or trust scientists to create knowledge that is unbiased and accurate?” Internal consistency was .8.

Potential participants were invited to participate in the survey online using Qualtrics (www.qualtrics.com). The survey consisted of multiple choice questions regarding demographic characteristics, the Centrality of Religiosity scale, an unrelated filler anagram task, and finally the General Trust in Science index. The filler task was included to avoid priming or demand characteristics, and an attention check was embedded within the religiosity scale. For full instructions and details of tasks, see supplementary materials.

For this correlational study , we assessed our primary hypothesis of a relationship between religiosity and trust in science using Pearson moment correlation coefficient. The statistical significance of the correlation coefficient was assessed using a t test. To test our secondary hypothesis of parental education levels and gender as predictors of religiosity, multiple linear regression analysis was used.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Normal distribution
• Measures of central tendency
• Chi square tests
• Confidence interval
• Quartiles & Quantiles

Methodology

• Cluster sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Thematic analysis
• Cohort study
• Peer review
• Ethnography

Research bias

• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Conformity bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Availability heuristic
• Attrition bias
• Social desirability bias

In your APA methods section , you should report detailed information on the participants, materials, and procedures used.

• Describe all relevant participant or subject characteristics, the sampling procedures used and the sample size and power .
• Define all primary and secondary measures and discuss the quality of measurements.
• Specify the data collection methods, the research design and data analysis strategy, including any steps taken to transform the data and statistical analyses.

You should report methods using the past tense , even if you haven’t completed your study at the time of writing. That’s because the methods section is intended to describe completed actions or research.

In a scientific paper, the methodology always comes after the introduction and before the results , discussion and conclusion . The same basic structure also applies to a thesis, dissertation , or research proposal .

Depending on the length and type of document, you might also include a literature review or theoretical framework before the methodology.

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